-5>.:\A'i%^^^*'^ 


Bagehot 


Shakespeare  the  Man 


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643939 


ijakespEare :  Cfje  Jttan.  * 

(1853-) 

lHE  greatest  of  English 
fpoets,  it  is  often  said,  is 
but  a  name.  "No  letter  of 
his  writing,  no  record  of 
his  conversation,  no  char- 
acter of  him  drawn  with 
any  fullness  by  a  contem- 
porary "  have  been  ex- 
tracted by  antiquaries 
from  the  piles  of  rubbish 
which  they  have  sifted.  Yet  of  no  person  is  there  a 
clearer  picture  in  the  popular  fancy.  You  seem  to 
have  known  Shakespeare,  to  have  seen  Shakespeare, 
to  have  been  friends  with  Shakespeare.  We  would 
attempt  a  slight  delineation  of  the  popular  idea 
which  has  been  formed :  not  from  loose  tradition  or 
remote  research,  not  from  what  some  one  says  somxC 
one  else  said  that  the  poet  said,  but  from  data  which 
are  at  least  undoubted, — from  the  sure  testimony 
of  his  certain  works. 

'^Shakespeare  et  son  T'emps:  Etude  Litter  aire.  Far 
M.  Guizot.  1852. 

Notes  and  Emendations  to  the  'Text  of  Shakespeare's 
Plays  from  early  Manuscript  Corrections  in  a  Copy 
of  the  Folio,  i6j2,  in  the  possession  of  R.  Fayne  Col- 
lier, Esq.,  F.S.A.  London.  i8^j. 

Some 


^IjafecBipcare:  ^  Some  extreme  skeptics,  we  know,  doubt  whether  it 
The  Man  Vis  possible  to  deduce  anything  as  to  an  author's 
Page  8  J  character  from  his  works.  Yet  surely  people  do  not 

keep  a  tame  steam-engine  to  write  their  books  :  and 
if  those  books  were  really  written  by  a  man,  he  must 
have  been  a  man  who  could  write  them;  he  must 
have  had  the  thoughts  which  they  express,  have  ac- 
quired the  knowledge  they  contain,  have  possessed 
the  style  in  which  we  read  them.  The  difficulty  is  a 
defedt  of  the  critics.  A  person  who  knows  nothing 
of  an  author  he  has  read  will  not  know  much  of  an 
author  whom  he  has  seen. 

First  of  all,  it  may  be  said  that  Shakespeare's  works 
could  only  be  produced  by  a  first-rate  imagination 
working  on  a  first-rate  experience.  It  is  often  diffi- 
cult to  make  out  whether  the  author  of  a  poetic 
creation  is  drawing  from  fancy  or  drawing  from  ex- 
perience; but  for  art  on  a  certain  scale  the  two  must 
concur.  Out  of  nothing  nothing  can  be  created. 
Some  plastic  power  is  required,  however  great  may 
be  the  material.  And  when  such  a  work  as  "  Ham- 
let" or  "Othello" — still  more,  when  both  of  them, 
and  others  not  unequal  —  have  been  created  by  a 
single  mind,  it  may  be  fairly  said  that  not  only 
a  great  imagination  but  a  full  conversancy  with  the 
world  was  necessary  to  their  produdtion.  The 
whole  powers  of  man,  under  the  most  favorable 
circumstances,  are  not  too  great  for  such  an  ef- 
fort. 

We  may  assume  that  Shakespeare  had  a  great  ex- 
perience. 


To  a  great  experience  one  thing  is  essential — an  f^bafewpcare: 
experiencingnature.  It  isnot enough  to  have  oppor- -/  The  Man 
tunity ;  it  is  essential  to  feel  it.  Some  occasions  come  (  Page  g 
to  all  men;  but  to  many  they  are  of  little  use,  and  to 
some  they  are  none.  What,  for  example,  has  expe- 
rience done  for  the  distinguished  Frenchman  the 
name  of  whose  essay  is  prefixed  to  this  paper.  M. 
Guizot  is  the  same  man  that  he  was  in  1820,  or,  we 
believe,  as  he  was  in  18 14.  Take  up  one  of  his  lec- 
tures published  before  he  was  a  praftical  statesman : 
you  will  be  struck  with  the  width  of  view,  the  am- 
plitude and  the  solidity  of  the  reflections  ;  you  will 
be  amazed  that  a  mere  literary  teacher  could  pro- 
duce anything  so  wise;  but  take  up  afterwards  an 
essay  published  since  his  fall,  and  you  will  be 
amazed  to  find  no  more.  Napoleon  I.  is  come  and 
gone,  the  Bourbons  of  the  old  regime  have  come 
and  gone,  the  Bourbons  of  the  new  regime  have  had 
their  turn.  M.  Guizot  has  been  first  minister  of  a 
citizen  king;  he  has  led  a  great  party;  he  has  pro- 
nounced many  a  great  discours  that  was  well  re- 
ceived by  the  second  elective  assembly  in  the  world. 
But  there  is  no  trace  of  this  in  his  writings.  No  one 
would  guess  from  them  that  their  author  had  ever 
left  the  professor's  chair.  It  is  the  same,  we  are  told, 
with  small  matters:  when  M.  Guizot  walks  the 
street  he  seems  to  see  nothing;  the  head  is  thrown 
back,  the  eye  fixed,  and  the  mouth  working.  His 
mind  is  no  doubt  at  work,  but  it  is  not  stirred  by 
what  is  external.  Perhaps  it  is  the  internal  activity  of 
mind  that  overmasters  the  perceptive  power.  Any- 
how, 


§)I)alirfl!pcare:  '\  how,  there  might  have  been  an  emetite  in  the  street. 
The  Man  V  and  he  would  not  have  known  it;  there  have  been 
Page  10  J  revolutions  in  his  life,  and  he  is  scarcely  the  wiser. 

Among  the  most  frivolous  and  fickle  of  civilized 
nations  he  is  alone.  They  pass  from  the  game  of 
war  to  the  game  of  peace,  from  the  game  of  science 
to  the  game  of  art,  from  the  game  of  liberty  to 
the  game  of  slavery,  from  the  game  of  slavery  to 
the  game  of  license;  he  stands  like  a  schoolmaster 
in  the  playground,  without  sport  and  without  pleas- 
ure, firm  and  sullen,  slow  and  awful. 
A  man  of  this  sort  is  a  curious  mental  phenomenon. 
He  appears  to  get  early —  perhaps  to  be  born  with 
—  a  kind  of  dry  schedule  or  catalogue  of  the  uni- 
verse ;  he  has  a  ledger  in  his  head,  and  has  a  title  to 
which  he  can  refer  any  transaction;  nothing  puzzles 
him,  nothing  comes  amiss  to  him,  but  he  is  not  in  the 
least  the  wiser  for  anything.  Like  the  book-keeper, 
he  has  his  heads  of  account,  and  he  knows  them,  but 
he  is  no  wiser  for  the  particular  items.  After  a  busy 
day  and  after  a  slow  day,  after  a  few  entries  and  after 
many,  his  knowledge  is  exactly  the  same  :  take  his 
opinion  of  Baron  Rothschild,  he  will  say,  "  Yes,  he 
keeps  an  account  with  us  "  ;  of  Humphrey  Brown, 
"  Yes,  we  have  that  account,  too."  Just  so  with  the 
class  of  minds  which  we  are  speaking  of,  and  in  great- 
er matters.  Very  early  in  life  they  come  to  a  certain 
and  considerable  acquaintance  with  the  world;  they 
learn  very  quickly  all  they  can  learn,  and  naturally 
they  never  in  any  way  learn  any  more.  Mr.  Pitt  is  in 
this  country  the  type  of  the  charadler.  Mr.  Alison, 


in  a  weli-known  passage,*  makes  it  a  matter  of  won-  |  ^l)afec6pcarc: 
der  that  he  was  fit  to  be  a  Chancellor  of  the  Excheq-  <  The  Man 
uer  at  twenty-three,  and  it  is  a  great  wonder  ;  but  it  (^  Page  u 
is  to  be  remembered  that  he  was  no  more  fit  at  forty- 
three.  As  somebody  said,  he  did  not  grow,  he  was 
cast.  Experience  taught  him  nothing,  and  he  did  not 
believe  that  he  had  anything  to  learn.  The  habit  of 
mind  in  smaller  degrees  is  not  very  rare,  and  might 
be  illustrated  without  end.  Hazlitt  tells  a  story  of 
West,  the  painter,  that  is  in  point :  when  some  one 
asked  him  if  he  had  ever  been  to  Greece,  he  answered, 
"No,  I  have  read  a  descriptive  catalogue  of  the  prin- 
cipal objefts  in  that  country,  and  I  believe  I  am  as 
well  conversant  with  them  as  if  I  had  visited  it."-|* 
No  doubt  he  was  just  as  well  conversant,  and  so 
would  be  any  doctrinaire. 

But  Shakespeare  was  not  a  man  of  this  sort.  If  he 
walked  down  a  street,  he  knew  whatwas  in  that  street. 
His  mind  did  not  form  in  early  life  a  classified  list  of 
all  the  objects  in  the  universe,  and  learn  no  more 
about  the  universe  ever  after.  From  a  certain  fine 
sensibility  of  nature,  it  is  plain  that  he  took  a  keen 
interest  not  only  in  the  general  and  coarse  outlines 
of  objed:s,  but  in  their  minutest  particulars  and  gen- 
tlest gradations.  You  may  open  Shakespeare  and  find 
the  clearest  proofs  of  this.  Take  the  following :  — 

*  "  History  of  Europe"  Vol.  II.  ,page  j66. 
'\  Roughly  from  '■'■'The  Old  Age  of  Artists,'*  in  the 
^^  Plain  Speaker  ";  also  note  to  "  A  Landscape  of  Nic- 
olas Poussin"  in  the  "  I'able  'Talk.'' 

"  PFhen, 


S>I)ake6pearc :  ^     "  TVhen  last  the  youjig  Orlatido  par  ted  from  you, 
T  H  E  M  A  N    V      He  left  a  promise  to  return  again 
Page  12  J       Within  an  hour ;  and  pacing  through  the  forest^ 

Chewing  the  food  of  sweet  and  bitter  fancy  ^ 
Loy  what  befell  I  he  threw  his  eye  aside  ^ 
And  mark  what  object  did  present  itself:  — 
Under  an  oak^  whose  boughs  were  mossed  with  age 
And  high  top  bald  with  dry  antiquity^ 
A  wretched  ragged  man^  overgrown  with  hair. 
Lay  sleeping  on  his  back :  about  his  neck 
A  green  and  gilded  snake  had  wreathed  itself 
Who  with  her  head,  nimble  in  threats,  approached 
"The  opening  of  his  mouth ;  but  suddenly. 
Seeing  Orlando,  it  unlinked  itself. 
And  with  indented  glides  did  slip  away 
Into  a  bush :  under  which  bush's  shade 
A  lioness,  with  udders  all  drawn  dry. 
Lay  crouching,  head  on  ground,  with  cat-like  watch. 
When  that  the  sleeping  man  should  stir ;  for  'tis 
"The  royal  disposition  of  that  beast 
I'o  prey  on  nothing  that  doth  seem  as  dead: 
This  seen,''  etc.,  etc.'-' 

Or  the  more  celebrated  description  of  the  hunt :  — 
"And  when  thou  hast  on  foot  the  purblind  hare, 

Mark  the  poor  wretch,  to  overshoot  his  troubles. 
How  he  outruns  the  wind,  and  with  what  care 

He  cranks  and  crosses,  with  a  thousand  doubles : 
'The  many  musits  through  the  which  he  goes 
Are  like  a  labyrinth  to  amaze  his  foes. 


*fC 


As  Tou  Like  it,"  IV,  3. 


^'■Sometime  he  runs  among  a  flock  of  sheep  ^  (  S)l)atiCB;peare : 

'J'o  make  the  cunning  hounds  mistake  their  smelly     -l  The  Man 

And  sometime  where  earth-delving  conies  keepy  y  Page  ij 

'To  stop  the  loud  pursuers  in  their  yell; 

And  sometime  sorteth  with  a  herd  of  deer : 

Danger  deviseth  shifts ;  wit  waits  on  fear : 

'•^For  there  his  smell  with  others  being  mingled^ 

The  hot  scent-snufling  hounds  are  driven  to  doubt y 

Ceasing  their  clamorous  cry  till  they  have  singledy 
With  much  adoy  the  cold  fault  cleanly  out : 

Then  do  they  spend  their  mouths ;  Echo  replieSy 

As  if  another  chase  were  in  the  skies. 

"By  this  y  poor  Wat,  far  off  upon  a  hilly 

Stands  on  his  hinder  legs  with  listening  eary 
To  hearken  if  his  foes  pursue  him  still; 

Anon  their  loud  alarums  he  doth  hear ; 
And  now  his  grief  may  be  compared  well 
To  one  sore  sick  that  hears  the  passing-bell. 

"  Then  shalt  thou  see  the  dew-bedabbled  wretch 

Turn  and  returny  indenting  with  the  way ; 
Each  envious  briar  his  weary  legs  doth  scratchy 

Each  shadow  makes  him  stopy  each  murmur  stay : 
For  misery  is  trodden  on  by  manyy 
And  being  loWy  never  relieved  by  any.''  * 

1 1  is  absurd ,  by  the  way,  to  say  we  ^no^  nothing  about 
the  man  who  wrote  that :  we  know  that  he  had  been 

*  "Venus  and  Adonis." 

after 


^j)afe«peare:  ^  after  a  hare.  It  is  idle  to  allege  that  mere  imagination 
T  H  E  M  A  N  V  would  tell  him  that  a  hare  is  apt  to  run  among  a  flock 
Page  14  )  of  sheep,  or  that  its  so  doing  disconcerts  the  scent  of 

hounds.  But  no  single  citation  really  represents  the 
poweroftheargument:setdescriptionsmaybemanu- 
fadured  to  order,  and  it  does  not  followthat  even  the 
most  accurate  or  successful  of  them  was  really  the  re- 
sult of  a  thorough  and  habitual  knowledge  of  the  ob- 
jeft.Amanwho  knows  little  of  nature  may  write  one 
excellent  delineation,  as  a  poor  man  may  have  one 
bright  guinea;  real  opulence  consists  in  havingmany. 
What  truly  indicates  excellentknowledgeis  the  habit 
of  constant,sudden,and  almost  unconsciousallusion, 
which  implies  familiarity,  for  it  can  arise  from  that 
alone ;  and  this  very  species  of  incidental,casual,  and 
perpetual  reference  to  "  the  mighty  world  of  eye  and 
ear"  *  is  the  particular  charafteristic  of  Shakespeare. 
In  this  resped:  Shakespeare  had  the  advantage  of  one 
whom,  in  many  points,  he  much  resembled, —  Sir 
Walter  Scott.  For  a  great  poet,  the  organization  of 
the  latter  was  very  blunt:  he  had  no  sense  of  smell, 
little  sense  of  taste,  almost  no  ear  for  music  (he  knew 
a  few,  perhaps  three,  Scotch  tunes,  which  he  avowed 
that  he  had  learned  in  sixty  years,  by  hard  labor  and 
mental  association),  and  notmuch  turn  for  the  minu- 
tiae of  nature  in  any  way.  The  effed  of  this  may  be 
seen  in  some  of  the  best  descriptive  passages  of  his 
poetry;  and  we  will  not  deny  that  it  does  (although 
proceedingfromasensuousdefed:)inacertaindegree 
add  to  their  popularity.  He  deals  with  the  main  out- 

*  Wordsworth^  "  Tint  em  Abbey." 


lines  and  great  points  of  nature,  never  attends  to  any  C  ^f)aiic£(peare: 
others,and  in  this  resped:  he  suits  thecomprehension-^  The  Man 
andknowledge  of  many  who  knowonly  those  essen-  (^  Page  ij 
tial  and  considerable  outlines.  Young  people  espe- 
cially, who  like  big  things,  are  taken  with  Scott,  and 
bored  by  Wordsworth,  who  knew  too  much.  And 
after  all,  the  two  poets  are  in  proper  harmony,  each 
with  his  own  scenery.  Of  all  beautiful  scenery  the 
Scotch  is  the  roughest  and  barest,  as  the  English  is 
the  most  complex  and  cultivated.  What  a  difference 
is  there  between  the  minute  and  finished  delicacy 
of  Rydal  Water  and  the  rough  simplicity  of  Loch 
Katrine!  It  is  the  beauty  of  civilization  beside  the 
beauty  of  barbarism.  Scott  has  himself  pointed  out 
the  effed:  of  this  on  arts  and  artists:  — 

"  Or  see  yon  weather-beaten  hind^ 
V/hose  sluggish  herds  before  him  wind. 
Whose  tattered  plaid  and  rugged  cheek 
His  Northern  clime  and  kindred  speak ; 
"Through  England's  laughing  meads  he  goes. 
And  England' s  wealth  around  him  flows : 
Ask  if  it  would  content  him  well 
At  ease  in  those  gay  plains  to  dwell, 
Where  hedgerows  spread  a  verdant  screen. 
And  spires  and  forests  intervene. 
And  the  neat  cottage  peeps  between? 
No  !  not  for  these  would  he  exchange 
His  dark  Lochabers  boundless  range. 
Not  for  fair  Devon  s  meads  forsake 
Ben  Nevis  gray  and  Garry's  lake. 

"  Thus 


^j)afeefipcare:  ^        "  'Thus  while  I  ape  the  measure  wild 
The  Man    V  Of  tales  that  charmed  me  yet  a  child^ 

Page  i6         J  Rude  though  they  be,  still  with  the  chime 

Return  the  thoughts  of  early  time; 
And  feelings  roused  in  life' s  first  day 
Glow  in  the  line  and  prompt  the  lay. 
'Then  rise  those  crags,  that  mountain  tower. 
Which  charmed  my  fancy  s  wakening  hour. 
Though  no  broad  river  swept  along. 
To  claim  perchance  heroic  song ; 
Though  sighed  no  groves  in  summer  gale. 
To  prompt  of  love  a  softer  tale ; 
Though  scarce  a  puny  streamlet's  speed 
Claimed  homage  from  a  shepherd's  reed, — 
Tet  was  poetic  impulse  given 
By  the  green  hill  and  clear  blue  heaven. 
It  was  a  barren  scene  and  wild. 
Where  naked  cliffs  were  rudely  piled. 
But  ever  and  anon  between 
Lay  velvet  tufts  of  loveliest  green; 
And  well  the  lonely  infant  knew 
Recesses  where  the  wall  flower  grew  ^ 
And  honeysuckle  loved  to  crawl 
Up  the  low  crag  and  ruined  wall. 

•  •  •  •  • 

^'■For  me,  thus  nurtured,  dost  thou  ask 
The  classic  poet's  well-conned  task? 
Nay,  Erskine,  nay,  —  on  the  wild  hill 
Let  the  wild  heath-bell  flourish  still; 
Cherish  the  tulip,  prune  the  vine. 
But  freely  let  the  woodbine  twine. 
And  leave  untrimmed  the  eglantine. 


Nay^  my  friend,  nay^  —  since  oft  thy  praise 

Hath  given  fresh  vigor  to  my  lays. 

Since  oft  thy  judgment  could  refine  (^ 

My  flattered  thought  or  cumbrous  line. 

Still  kind,  as  is  thy  wont,  attend. 

And  in  the  minstrel  spare  the  friend. 

though  wild  as  cloud,  as  stream,  as  gale. 

Flow  forth,  flow  unrestrained,  my  tale  I  "  * 

And  this  is  wise,  for  there  is  beauty  in  the  North  as 
well  as  in  the  South.  Only  it  is  to  be  remembered  that 
the  beauty  of  the  Trosachs  is  the  result  of  but  a  few 
elements,  —  say  birch  and  brushwood,  rough  hills 
and  narrow  dells,  much  heather  and  many  stones, — 
while  the  beauty  of  England  is  one  thing  in  one  dis- 
trid:  and  one  in  another;  is  here  the  combination  of 
one  set  of  qualities,  and  there  the  harmony  of  oppo- 
site ones,and  is  everywhere  madeupof  many  details 
and  delicate  refinements,  all  which  require  an  exqui- 
site delicacy  of  perceptive  organization,  a  seeing  eye, 
a  minutely  hearing  ear.  Scott's  is  the  strong  admira- 
tion ofarough  mind ;  Shakespeare's,the  nice  minute- 
ness of  a  susceptible  one. 

A  perfedily  poetic  appreciation  of  nature  contains 
two  elements,  —  a  knowledge  of  fadls  and  a  sensi- 
bility to  charms.  Everybody  who  may  have  to  speak 
to  some  naturalists  will  be  well  aware  how  widely  the 
two  may  be  separated.  He  will  have  seen  that  a  man 
may  study  butterflies  and  forget  that  they  are  beau- 


rS)^afcefiipeare: 
\  The  Man 


(( 


MarmionJ'  Introduction  to  Canto  III. 


Page  II 


tiful. 


^I)afeespcarc:^  tiful,  or  be  perfed:  in  the  "lunar  theory"  without 
T  H  E  M  A  N  V  knowing  what  most  people  mean  by  the  moon.  Gen- 
Page  j8         J  erally  such  people  prefer  the  stupid  parts  of  nature, 

— worms  and  Cochin-China  fowls.  But  Shakespeare 

was  not  obtuse.  The  lines  — 

''Daffodils, 
That  come  before  the  swallow  dares,  and  take 
The  winds  of  March  with  beauty ;  violets  dim. 
But  sweeter  than  the  lids  of  Juno' s  eyes 
Or  Cytherea's  breath,''  * 

seem  to  show  that  he  knew  those  feelings  of  youth 
to  which  beauty  is  more  than  a  religion. 
In  his  mode  of  delineating  natural  objedis,  Shakes- 
peare is  curiously  opposed  to  Milton.  The  latter, 
who  was  still  by  temperament  and  a  schoolmaster 
by  trade,  seleds  a  beautiful  objed:,  puts  it  straight 
out  before  him  and  his  readers,  and  accumulates 
upon  it  all  the  learned  imagery  of  a  thousand  years ; 
Shakespeare  glances  at  it  and  says  something  of  his 
own.  It  is  not  our  intention  to  say  that  as  a  describer 
of  the  external  world,  Milton  is  inferior;  in  set  de- 
scription we  rather  think  that  he  is  the  better.  We 
only  wish  to  contrast  the  mode  in  which  the  de- 
lineation is  effeded.  The  one  is  like  an  artist  v/ho 
dashes  off  any  number  of  picturesque  sketches  at 
any  moment;  the  other  like  a  man  who  has  lived  at 
Rome,  has  undergone  a  thorough  training,  and  by 
deliberate  and  conscious  effort,  after  a  long  study  of 

"^''Wintersrale;'  IV,j. 


the  best  masters,  can  produce  a  few  great  pl6lures.  (  ^i^afeespeate: 
Milton,  accordingly,  as  has  been  often  remarked,  is^  The  Man 
careful  in  the  choice  of  his  subjedis, — he  knows  too  (^  Page  ip 
well  the  value  of  his  labor  to  be  very  ready  to  squan- 
der it;  Shakespeare,  on  the  contrary,  describes  any- 
thing that  comes  to  hand,  for  he  is  prepared  for  it 
whatever  it  may  be,  and  what  he  paints  he  paints 
without  effort.  Compare  any  passage  from  Shakes- 
peare— for  example,  those  quoted  before — and  the 
following  passage  from  Milton:  — 

^^ Southward  through  Eden  went  a  river  large^ 
Nor  changed  its  course^  but  through  the  shaggy  hill 
Passed  underneath  ingulf ed^  — for  God  had  thrown 
l^hat  mountain  as  his  garden  mold,  high  raised 
Upon  the  rapid  current,  which,  through  veins 
Of  porous  earth  with  kindly  thirst  updrawn. 
Rose  afresh  fountain,  and  with  many  a  rill 
Watered  the  garden ;  thence  united  fell 
Down  the  steep  glade,  and  met  the  nether  flood. 
Which  from  its  darksome  passage  now  appears ; 
And  now  divided  into  four  main  streams 
Runs  diverse,  wandering  many  a  famous  realm 
And  country,  whereof  here  needs  no  account : 
But  rather  to  tell  how,  —  if  art  could  tell,  — 
How  from  that  sapphire  fount  the  crisped  brooks. 
Rolling  on  orient  pearl  and  sands  of  gold. 
With  mazy  error  under  pendant  shades 
Ran  ne^ar,  visiting  each  plant ;  and  fed 
Flowers  worthy  of  Paradise,  which  not  nice  art 
In  beds  and  curious  knots,  but  nature  boon 

Poured 


§>|)afecfi!pcarc:  \  Poured  forth  profuse  on  hill  and  dale  and  plain. 
The  Man  V  Both  where  the  morning  sun  first  warmly  smote 
Page  20         J     T'he  open  field,  and  where  the  unpierced  shade 

Imbrowned  the  noontide  bowers. Thus  was  this  place 

A  happy  rural  seat  of  various  view : 

Groves  whose  rich  trees  wept  odorous  gums  and  balm  ; 

Others  whose  fruit,  burnished  with  golden  rind 

Hung  amiable  [Hesperian  fables  true. 

If  true,  here  only),  and  of  delicious  taste  ; 

Betwixt  them  lawns  or  level  downs,  and  flocks 

Grazing  the  tender  herb,  were  interposed. 

Or  palmy  hillock,  or  the  flowery  lap 

Of  some  irriguous  valley  spread  her  store ; 

Flowers  of  all  hue,  and  without  thorn  the  rose.''  * 

Why,  you  could  draw  a  map  of  it.  It  is  not  "  nature 
boon,"  but  "  nice  art  in  beds  and  curious  knots  " ;  it 
is  exactly  the  old  (and  excellent)  style  of  artificial 
gardening,  by  which  any  place  can  be  turned  into 
trim  hedge-rows,  and  stiff  borders,  and  comfortable 
shades  :  but  there  are  no  straight  lines  in  nature  or 
Shakespeare.  Perhaps  the  contrast  may  be  accounted 
for  by  the  way  in  which  the  two  poets  acquired  their 
knowledge  of  scenes  and  scenery.  We  think  we 
demonstrated  before  that  Shakespeare  was  a  sports- 
man; but  if  there  be  still  a  skeptic  or  a  dissentient, 
let  him  read  the  following  remarks  on  dogs:  — 

"Afy  hounds  are  bred  out  of  the  Spartan  kind. 
So  flew  ed,  so  sanded;  and  their  heads  are  hung 
With  ears  that  sweep  away  the  morning  dew  ; 

*  ''Paradise  Lost,"  Book  IV. 


Crook-kneed^  and  dewlapped  like  T'hessalian  bulls ;     (  ^IdafecBpearc : 
Slow  in  pursuit^  but  matched  in  mouth  like  bells  ^       ^  The  Man 
Each  under  each.  A  cry  more  tunable  (^  Page  21 

Was  never  holla  d  to  nor  cheered  with  horn 
In  Crete,  in  Sparta,  nor  in  Thessaly"  * 

"Judge  when  you  hear,"f  It  is  evident  that  the 
man  who  wrote  this  was  a  judge  of  dogs,  was  an 
out-of-door  sporting  man, full  of  natural  sensibility, 
not  defedive  in  "daintiness  of  ear,"  and  above  all 
things,  apt  to  cast  on  nature  random,  sportive, 
half-boyish  glances,  which  reveal  so  much  and  be- 
queath such  abiding  knowledge.  Milton,  on  the 
contrary,  went  out  to  see  nature.  He  left  a  narrow 
cell,  and  the  intense  study  which  was  his  "  portion 
in  this  life,"  to  take  a  slow,  careful,  and  refledive 
walk.  In  his  treatise  on  education  he  has  given  us 
his  notion  of  the  way  in  which  young  people  should 
be  familiarized  with  natural  objefts.  "  But,"  he  re- 
marks, "to  return  to  our  own  institute:  besides 
these  constant  exercises  at  home,  there  is  another 
opportunity  of  gaining  experience  to  be  won  from 
pleasure  itself  abroad.  In  those  vernal  seasons  of  the 
year  when  the  air  is  calm  and  pleasant,  it  were  an  in- 
jury and  sullenness  against  nature  not  to  go  out  and 
see  her  riches,  and  partake  in  her  rqoicing  with 
heaven  and  earth.  I  should  not  therefore  be  a  per- 
suader to  them  of  studying  much  then,  after  two  or 

*  "  Midsummer  Night's  Dream,'  IV,  I. 

■\Line  immediately  following  verse  above. 

three 


^l^afeeepearc:  |  three  years  that  they  have  well  laid  their  grounds, 
The  Man  >  but  to  ride  out  in  companies  with  prudent  and  staid 
Page  22  J  guides,  to  all  the  quarters  of  the  land:  learning  and 

observing  all  places  of  strength,  all  commodities  of 
building  and  of  soil,  for  towns  and  tillage,  harbors 
and  ports  for  trade ;  sometimes  taking  sea  as  far  as 
to  our  navy,  to  learn  there  also  what  they  can  in  the 
practical  knowledge  of  sailing  and  of  sea-fight." 
Fancy  the  "prudent  and  staid  guides."  What  a 
machinery  for  making  pedants !  Perhaps  Shake- 
speare would  have  known  that  the  conversation 
would  be  In  this  sort:  "  I  say.  Shallow,  that  mare  Is 
going  in  the  knees.  She  has  never  been  the  same 
since  you  larked  her  over  the  fivebar,  while  Mol- 
eyes  was  talking  clay  and  agriculture.  I  do  not  hate 
Latin  so  much,  but  I  hate  *  argillaceous  earth'; 
and  what  use  is  that  to  a  fellow  In  the  Guards,  / 
should  like  to  know?"  Shakespeare  had  himself 
this  sort  of  boyish  buoyancy ;  he  was  not  one  of  the 
"staid  guides."  We  might  further  illustrate  it,  yet 
this  would  be  tedious  enough;  and  we  prefer  to  go 
on  and  show  what  we  mean  by  an  experiencing  na- 
ture In  relation  to  men  and  women,  just  as  we  have 
striven  to  Indicate  what  it  is  in  relation  to  horses 
and  hares. 

The  reason  why  so  few  good  books  are  written  Is 
that  so  few  people  that  can  write  know  anything.  In 
general  an  author  has  always  lived  In  a  room,  has 
read  books,  has  cultivated  science,  is  acquainted 
with  the  style  and  sentiments  of  the  best  authors, 
but  he  Is  out  of  the  way  of  employing  his  own  eyes 


and  ears.  He  has  nothing  to  hear  and  nothing  to  r^I)aiiefiipcare: 
see.  His  life  is  a  vacuum.  The  mental  habits  of  <  The  Man 
Robert  Southey,  which  about  a  year  ago  were  so  (^  Page  2j 
extensively  praised  in  the  public  journals,  are  the 
type  of  literary  existence,  just  as  the  praise  be- 
stowed on  them  shows  the  admiration  excited  by 
them  among  literary  people.  He  wrote  poetry  (as 
if  anybody  could)  before  brealcfast;  he  read  during 
breakfast.  He  wrote  history  until  dinner;  he  cor- 
re6ted  proof-sheets  between  dinner  and  tea;  he 
wrote  an  essay  for  the  ^arterly  afterwards  ;  and 
after  supper,  by  way  of  relaxation,  composed  "  The 
Doctor" — a  lengthy  and  elaborate  jest.  Now,  what 
can  any  one  think  of  such  a  life? — except  how 
clearly  it  shows  that  the  habits  best  fitted  for  com- 
municating information,  formed  with  the  best  care, 
and  daily  regulated  by  the  best  motives,  are  exactly 
the  habits  which  are  likely  to  afford  a  man  the  least 
information  to  communicate.  Southey  had  no 
events,  no  experiences.  His  wife  kept  house  and  al- 
lowed him  pocket  money,  just  as  if  he  had  been  a 
German  professor  devoted  to  accents,  tobacco,  and 
the  dates  of  Horace's  amours.  And  it  is  pitiable  to 
think  that  so  meritorious  a  life  was  only  made  en- 
durable by  a  painful  delusion.  He  thought  that  day 
by  day,  and  hour  by  hour,  he  was  accumulating 
stores  for  the  instruction  and  entertainment  of  a 
long  posterity.  His  epics  were  to  be  in  the  hands  of 
all  men,  and  his  history  of  Brazil  the  "Herodotus 
of  the  South  American  Republics";  as  if  his  epics 
were  not  already  dead,  and  as  if  the  people  who  now 

cheat 


S>|)afecfipearc:  |  cheat  at  Valparaiso  care  a  real  who  it  was  that 
T  H  E  M  A  N  V  cheated  those  before  them.  Yet  it  was  only  by  a  con- 
Page  24  J  vidion  like  this  that  an  industrious  and  caligraphic 
man  (for  such  was  Robert  Southey),  who  might 
have  earned  money  as  a  clerk,  worked  all  his  days 
for  half  a  clerk's  wages,  at  occupation  much  duller 
and  more  laborious.  The  critic  in  the  "Vicar  of 
Wakefield"  lays  down  that  you  should  always  say 
that  the  pidure  would  have  been  better  if  the 
painter  had  taken  more  pains ;  but,  in  the  case  of  the 
pradiced  literary  man,  you  should  often  enough 
say  that  the  writings  would  have  been  much  better 
if  the  writer  had  taken  less  pains.  He  says  he  has 
devoted  his  life  to  the  subjed;  the  reply  is,  "Then 
you  have  taken  the  best  way  to  prevent  your  making 
anything  of  it.  Instead  of  reading  studiously  what 
Burgersdicius  and  iEnesidemus  said  men  were,  you 
should  have  gone  out  yourself  and  seen  (if  you 
can  see)  what  they  are." 

After  all,  the  original  way  of  writing  books  may  turn 
cut  to  be  the  best.  The  first  author,  it  is  plain,  could 
not  havetaken anythingfrom  books, sincetherewere 
no  books  for  him  to  copy  from;  he  looked  at  things 
for  himself  Anyhow  the  modern  system  fails,  for 
where  are  the  amusing  books  from  voracious  stu- 
dents and  habitual  writers  ?  Not  that  we  mean  ex- 
ad:ly  to  say  that  an  author's  hard  reading  is  the  cause 
of  his  writing  that  which  is  hard  to  read.  This  would 
be  near  the  truth,  but  not  quite  the  truth.  The  two 
are  concomitant  efi^ects  of  a  certain  defective  nature. 
Slow  men  read  well,  but  write  ill.  The  abstraded 


habit,  the  want  of  keen  exterior  interests,  the  aloof-  C  ^Ijafeesptare: 
ness  of  mind  from  what  is  next  it,  all  tend  to  make  a<  The  Man 
man  feel  an  exciting  curiosity  and  interest  about  re-  (^  Pagtr  25 
mote  literary  events,  the  toils  of  scholastic  logicians, 
and  the  petty  feuds  of  Argos  and  Lacedaemon;  but 
they  also  tend  to  make  a  man  very  unable  to  explain 
and  elucidate  those  exploits  for  the  benefitof  his  fel- 
lows. What  separates  the  author  from  hisreaderswill 
make  it  proportionably  difficult  for  him  to  explain 
himself  to  them.  Secluded  habits  do  not  tend  to  elo- 
quence ;  and  the  indifferent  apathy  which  is  so  com- 
mon in  studious  persons  is  exceedingly  unfavorable 
to  the  liveliness  of  narration  and  illustration  which 
is  needed  for  excellence  in  even  the  simpler  sorts  of 
writing.  Moreover,  in  general,  it  will  perhaps  be 
found  that  persons  devoted  to  mere  literature  com- 
monly become  devoted  to  mere  idleness.  They  wish 
to  produce  a  great  work,  but  they  find  they  cannot. 
Having  relinquished  everything  to  devote  them- 
selves to  this,  they  conclude  on  trial  that  this  is  im- 
possible; they  wish  to  write,  but  nothing  occurs  to 
them :  therefore  they  write  nothing,  and  they  do 
nothing.  As  has  been  said,  they  have  nothing  to  do ; 
their  life  has  no  events,  unless  they  are  very  poor; 
with  any  decent  means  of  subsistence,  they  have 
nothing  to  rouse  them  from  an  indolent  and  musing 
dream.  A  merchant  must  meet  his  bills,  or  he  is  civ- 
illy dead  and  uncivilly  remembered  ;  but  a  student 
may  know  nothing  of  time  and  be  too  lazy  to  wind 
up  his  watch.  In  the  retired  citizen's  journal  in  Ad- 
dison's Spectator  we  have  the  type  of  this  way  of 

spending 


§l)aHCfi(pcare:  1  spending  the  time:  "Mem. —  Morning  eight  to 
The  Man  >  nine,  went  into  the  parlor  and  tied  on  my  shoe- 
Page  26  J  buckles."'"  This  is  the  sort  of  hfe  for  which  studious 

men  commonly  relinquish  the  pursuits  of  business 
and  the  society  of  their  fellows. 
Yet  all  literary  men  are  not  tedious,  neither  are  they 
all  slow.  One  great  example  even  these  most  tedious 
times  have  luckily  given  us,  to  show  us  what  maybe 
done  by  a  really  great  man  even  now;  the  same  who 
before  served  as  an  illustration, —  Sir  Walter  Scott. 
In  his  lifetime  people  denied  he  was  a  poet,  but  no- 
body said  that  he  was  not  "  the  best  fellow  "*|*  In 
Scotland, — perhaps  that  was  not  much, — or  that  he 
had  not  more  wise  joviality,  more  living  talk,  more 
graphic  humor,  than  any  man  in  Great  Britain. 
"Wherever  we  named  him,"  said  Mr.  Wordsworth, 
"we  found  the  word  acted  as  an  open  sesamum;  and 
I  believe  that  in  the  character  of  the  sheriff's  friends, 
we  might  have  counted  on  a  hearty  welcome  under 
any  roof  in  the  border  country."  J  Never  negled:  to 
talk  to  people  with  whom  you  are  casually  thrown, 
was  his  precept;  and  he  exemplified  the  maxim  him- 
self:— 

"  /  believe^'''  observes  his  biographer, "  Scott  has  some- 
where expressed  in  print  his  satisfaction  that  anions 
all  the  changes  of  our  manners,  the  ancient  freedom  of 

^'No.  Jiy.  A  very  "  wild''  quotation.  —  Ed. 

f  "//<?  was  a  thorough  good   fellow."  —  Moore; 

Lockhart,  Vol.  V,  Chap.  Hi. 

X  Lockhart,  Vol.  II,  Chap.  i. 


personal  intercourse  inay  still  be  indulged  between  a  [  ^I)afee6pearc : 
master  and  an  out-of-doors  j^ri^^zw/;  but  in  truth  he  I  The  Man 
kept  by  the  old  fashion^  even  with  domestic  servants,  y  Page  27 
to  an  extent  which  I  have  hardly  seen  practiced  by  any 
other  gentleman.  He  conversed  with  his  coachman  if 
he  sat  by  him,  as  he  often  did,  on  the  box;  with  his 
footman,  if  he  chanced  to  be  in  the  rumble.  .  .  Indeed, 
he  did  not  confine  this  humanity  to  his  own  people ;  any 
steady  servant  of  a  friend  of  his  was  soon  considered  as 
a  sort  of  friend  too,  and  was  sure  to  have  a  kind  little 
colloquy  to  himself  at  coming  and  going'^  * 

"  Sir  Walter  speaks  to  every  man  as  if  they  were  blood 
relations," 'I*  was  the  expressive  comment  of  one  of 
these  dependents.  It  was  in  this  way  that  he  acquired 
the  great  knowledge  of  various  kinds  of  men  which 
is  so  clear  and  conspicuous  in  his  writings ;  nor  could 
that  knowledge  have  been  acquired  on  easier  termxS, 
or  in  anyother  v/ay.  No  man  could  describe  thechar- 
a(5ter  of  Dandie  Dinmont  J  without  having  been  in 
Liddlesdale.  Whatever  has  been  once  in  a  book  mav 
be  put  into  a  book  again;  but  an  original  charadler, 
taken  at  first  hand  from  the  sheepwalks  and  from 
nature,  must  be  seen  in  order  to  be  known.  A  man, 
to  be  able  to  describe — indeed,  to  be  able  to  know — 
various  people  in  life,  must  be  able  at  sight  to  com- 
prehend their  essential  features,  to  know  how  they 

*  Lockhart,  Vol.  IV,  Chap.  xi. 
flbid.y  Vol.  V,  Chap.  xii. 
^In  ^^Guy  Mannering.'' 

shade 


S>{)akc6pf  arr :  |  shade  one  into  another,  to  see  how  they  diversify  the 
The  Man  v  common  uniformity  of  civilized  life.  Nor  does  this 
Page  28  J  involve  simply  intelledual  or  even  imaginative  pre- 

requisites; still  less  will  it  be  facilitated  by  exquisite 
senses  or  subtle  fancy.  What  is  wanted  is,  to  be  able 
to  appreciate  mere  clay, — which  mere  mind  never 
will. 

If  you  will  describe  the  people, —  nay,  if  you 
will  write  for  the  people, — you  must  be  one  of  the 
people;  you  must  have  led  their  life,  and  must  wish 
to  lead  their  life.  However  strong  in  any  poet  may 
be  the  higher  qualities  of  abstract  thought  or  con- 
ceiving fancy,  unless  he  can  actually  sympathize  with 
thosearoundhimhecan  never  describe  those  around 
him.  Any  attempt  to  produce  a  likeness  of  what  is 
not  really  liked  by  the  person  who  is  describing  it 
will  end  in  the  creation  of  what  may  be  corred;,  but 
is  not  living;  of  what  may  be  artistic,  but  is  likewise 
artificial. 

Perhaps  this  is  the  defed:  of  the  works  of  the  greatest 
dramatic  genius  of  recent  times,  —  Goethe.  His 
works  are  too  much  in  the  nature  of  literary  studies; 
the  mind  is  often  deeply  impressed  by  them,  but  one 
doubts  if  the  author  was.  He  saw  them  as  he  saw  the 
houses  of  Weimar  and  the  plants  in  the  act  of  meta- 
morphosis: he  had  a  clear  perception  of  their  fixed 
condition  and  their  successive  transitions,  but  he  did 
not  really  (if  we  may  so  speak)  comprehend  their  mo- 
tive power;  so  to  say,  he  appreciated  their  life,  but 
not  their  liveliness.  Niebuhr,  as  is  well  known,  com- 
pared the  most  elaborate  of  Goethe's  works,  the 


novel  of "  Wilhelm  Meister,"  to  a  menagerie  of  tame  C  ^If&kt&ptaxt : 
animals;  meaning  thereby,  as  we  believe,  to  express  <  The  Man 
much  the  same  distindion, — he  felt  that  there  was  a  (^  Page  2p 
deficiency  in  mere  vigor  and  rude  energy.  We  have 
a  long  train  and  no  engine;  a  great  accumulation  of 
excellent  matter,  arranged  and  ordered  with  masterly 
skill,  but  not  animated  with  over-buoyant  and  un- 
bounded play.  And  we  trace  this  not  to  a  defed:  in 
imaginative  power, —  a  defed;  which  it  would  be  a 
simple  absurdity  to  impute  to  Goethe,  —  but  to  the 
tone  of  his  character  and  the  habits  of  his  mind.  He 
moved  hither  and  thither  through  life,  but  he  was 
always  a  man  apart.  He  mixed  with  unnumbered 
kinds  of  men,  with  courts  and  academies,  students 
and  women,  camps  and  artists;  but  everywhere  he 
was  with  them  yet  not  of  them.  In  every  scene  he  was 
there;  and  he  made  it  clear  that  he  was  there  with  a 
reserve  and  as  a  stranger,  —  he  went  there  lo  experi- 
ence. 

As  a  man  of  universal  culture,  and  well  skilled 
in  the  order  and  classification  of  human  life,  the  fact 
of  any  one  class  or  order  being  beyond  his  reach  or 
comprehension  seemed  an  absurdity,  and  it  was  an 
absurdity ;  he  thought  he  was  equal  to  moving  in  any 
description  of  society,  and  he  was  equal  to  it;  but 
then,  on  that  exad:  account  he  was  absorbed  in  none ; 
there  were  none  of  surpassing  and  immeasurably  pre- 
ponderating captivation.  No  scene  and  no  subjed: 
were  to  him  what  Scotland  and  Scotch  nature  were 
to  Sir  Walter  Scott.  "If  I  did  not  see  the  heather  at 
least  once  a  year,  I  think  I  should  die,"  said  the 

latter; 


^bakcepcarc:  ^  latter  ;'='  but  Goethe  would  have  lived  without  it, 
The  Man    land  it  would  not  have  cost  him  much  trouble.  In 
P^gg  JO         J  every  one  of  Scott's  novels  there  is  always  the  spirit 
of  the  old  moss-trooper,  the  flavor  of  the  ancient 
Border;  there  is  the  intense  sympathy  which  enters 
into  the  most  living  moments  of  the  most  living 
charaders, — the  lively  energy  which  becomes  the 
energy  of  the  most  vigorous  persons  delineated. 
"  Marmion  "  was  "written"  while  he  was  galloping 
on  horseback:  it  reads  as  if  it  were  so. 
Now,  it  appears  that  Shakespeare  not  only  had  that 
various  commerce  with  and  experience  of  men  which 
was  common  both  to  Goethe  and  to  Scott,  but  also 
that  he  agrees  with  the  latter  rather  than  with  the 
former  in  the  kind  and  species  of  that  experience. 
H  e  was  not  merely  with  men,  but  of  men ;  he  was  not 
a  "thing  apart,"  f  with  a  clear  intuition  of  what  was 
in  those  around  him, — he  had  in  his  own  nature  the 
germs  and  tendencies  of  the  very  elements  that  he 
described.  He  knew  what  was  in  man,  for  he  felt  it 
in  himself.  Throughout  all  his  writings  you  see  an 
amazing  sympathy  with  common  people ;  rather  an 
excessive  tendency  to  dwell  on  the  common  features 
of  ordinary  lives.You  feel  that  common  people  could 
have  been  cut  out  of  him,  but  not  without  his  feeling 
it;  for  it  would  have  deprived  him  of  a  very  favorite 

'"'To   Washington  Irving;    see  Lockhart^  Vol.  IV, 
Chap.  Hi. 

'\  ^^  Man's  love  is  of  man  s  life  a  thing  apart.''  —  ^'^Don 
Juan"  /,  ex  civ. 


subjed:, — of  a  portion  of  his  ideas  to  which  he  habit-  r§>l)afeefi!peare: 
ually  recurred.  J  The  Man 

(  Page  JT 

Leonato.  What  would  you  with  me,  honest  neighbor  ? 
Dogberry.  Marry,  sir,  I  would  have  some  confidence 
with  you,  that  decerns  you  nearly, 
Leon.  Brief,  I  pray  you;  for  you  see  'tis  a  busy  time 
with  me. 

Dog.  Marry,  this  it  is,  sir — 
Verges.  Tes,  in  truth  it  is,  sir. 
Leon.  What  is  it,  my  good  friends? 
Dog.  Goodman  Verges,  sir,  speaks  a  little   off  the 
matter :  an  old  man,  sir,  and  his  wits  are  not  so  blunt 
as,  God  help,  I  would  desire  they  were ;  but  in  faith, 
honest  as  the  skin  between  his  brows. 
Verg.  Yes,  I  thank  God,  I  am  as  honest  as  any  man 
living ,  that  is  an  old  man,  and  no  honest er  than  I. 
Dog.  Comparisons  are  odious;  —  palabras,  neighbor 
Verges. 

Leon.  Neighbors, you  are  tedious. 
Dog.  It  pleases  your  worship  to  say  so,  but  we  are  the 
poor  duke' s  officers ;  but  truly,  for  my  own  part,  if  I 
were  as  tedious  as  a  king,  I  could  find  in  my  heart  to  be- 
stow it  all  of  your  worship. 

Leon.  /  would  fain  know  what  you  have  to  say. 
Verg.  Marry,  sir,  our  watch  to-night,  excepting  your 
worship' s  presence,  have  td en  a  couple  of  as  arrant 
knaves  as  any  in  Messina, 

Dog.  a  good  old  man,  sir ;  he  will  be  talking ;  as  they 
say.  When  the  age  is  in,  the  wit  is  out.  God  help  us  I 

it 


S'tiafefspfate; '^  //  is  a  world  to  seel  —  Well  said y  i  faith ^  neighbor 
T  H  E  iVI  A  N  >  Verges ; —  well,  God 's  agoodtnan ;  an  two  men  ride  of  a 
Page  J 2  \  horse,  one  must  ride  behind.  —  An  honest  soul,  i'  faith, 

sir,  by  7ny  troth  he  is,  as  ever  broke  bread;  but  God  is 

to  be  worshipped ;  all  men  are  not  alike,  —  alas,  good 

neighbor  / 

Leon.  Indeed,  neighbor,  he  comes  too  short  of  you. 

Dog.  '  Gifts  that  God  gives — '  etc.,  etc."^ 

Stafford.  Ay,  sir. 

Cade.  By  her  he  had  two  children  at  one  birth. 
Staff.  That' s false. 

Cade.  Ay,  there  s  the  question;  but  I  say  'tis  true. 
The  elder  of  them  being  put  to  nurse. 
Was  by  a  beggar-woman  stolen  away ; 
And,  ignorant  of  his  birth  and  parentage. 
Became  a  bricklayer  when  he  came  to  age ; 
His  son  am  I :  deny  it  if  you  can. 
Dick.  Nay,  'tis  too  true;  therefore  he  shall  be  king. 
Smith.  Sir,  he  made  a  chimney  in  my  father  s  house, 
and  the  bricks  are  alive  at  this  day  to  testify  it;  there- 
fore, deny  it  not.f 

Shakespeare  was  too  wise  not  to  know  that  for  most 
of  the  purposes  of  human  Hfe,  stupidity  is  a  most 
valuable  element.  He  had  nothing  of  the  impatience 
which  sharp,  logical,  narrow  minds  habitually  feel 
when  they  come  across  those  who  do  not  apprehend 
their  quick  and  precise  deductions.  No  doubt  he 

*  ''Much  Ado  About  Nothing,"  III,  5. 
t"^  King  Henry  VI  "  IV,  2. 


talked  to  the  stupid  players;  to  the  stupid  door-  f^^afeefitpeare: 
keeper;  to  the  property  man,  who  considers  pastes  The  Man 
jewels  "very  preferable,besides  the  expense";  talked  (^Page 
with  the  stupid  apprentices  of  stupid  Fleet  Street, 
and  had  much  pleasure  in  ascertaining  whatwas  their 
notion  of"  King  Lear."  In  his  comprehensive  mind 
itwas  enough  if  every  man  hitched  well  into  his  own 
place  in  human  life.  If  every  one  were  logical  and 
literary,  how  would  there  be  scavengers  or  watchmen 
or  calkers  or  coopers?  Narrow  minds  will  be  "sub- 
dued to  what  they  work  in."  *  The  "  dyer's  hand"f 
will  not  more  clearly  carry  off  its  tint,  nor  will  what  is 
molded  more  precisely  indicate  the  confines  of  the 
mold.  A  patient  sympathy,  a  kindly  fellow-feeling 
for  the  narrow  intelligence  necessarily  indviced  by 
narrow  circumstances, — a  narrowness  which  in  some 
degrees  seems  to  be  inevitable,  and  is  perhaps  more 
serviceable  than  most  things  to  the  wise  condud  of 
life, —  this,  though  quick  and  half-bred  minds  may 
despise  it,  seems  to  be  a  necessary  constituent  in  the 
composition  of  manifold  genius.  "How  shall  the 
world  be  served?"  asks  the  host  in  Chaucer.  We 
must  have  cart-horses  as  well  as  race-horses,  dray- 
men as  well  as  poets.  It  is  no  bad  thing,  after  all,  to 
be  a  slow  man  and  to  have  one  idea  a  year.  You  don't 
make  a  figure,  perhaps,  in  argumentative  society, 
which  requires  a  quicker  species  of  thought;  but  is 
that  the  worse? 

'^'Shakespeare,  Sonnet  CXI,  Vol.  1—18. 
■\Ibid. 

HOLOFERNES. 


^Ijaiiefipcarc :  ^  Holofernes.  Via^  Goodman  Dull!  thou  hast  spoken 
The  Man    Vno  word  all  this  while. 
P^g' 34         J  l^u^^- Nor  understood  none  neither,  sir. 
HoL.  A  lions  !  we  will  employ  thee. 
Dull.  Fll  make  one  in  a  dance  or  so;  or  I  zvill play 
On  the  tabor  to  the  worthies,  and  let  them 
dance  the  hay. 
HoL.  Most  dull,  honest  Dull!  to  our  sport  aw  ay  I  "^ 

And  such,  we  believe,  was  the  notion  of  Shakes- 
peare. S.  T.  Coleridge  has  a  nice  criticism  which 
bears  on  this  point.  He  observes  that  in  the  narra- 
tions of  uneducated  people  in  Shakespeare,  just  as  in 
real  life,  there  is  a  want  of  prospediveness  and  a  su- 
perfluous amount  of  regressiveness.  People  of  this 
sort  are  unable  to  look  a  long  way  in  front  of  them, 
and  they  wander  from  the  right  path.  They  get  on  too 
fast  with  one  half,  and  then  the  other  hopelessly  lags. 
They  can  tell  a  story  exadly  as  it  is  told  to  them  (as 
an  animal cangostep  bystepwhere  ithas  beenbefore) ; 
but  they  can't  calculate  its  bearings  beforehand  or 
see  how  it  is  to  be  adapted  to  those  to  whom  they  are 
speaking,  nor  do  they  know  how  much  they  have 
thoroughly  told  and  how  much  they  have  not.  "I 
went  up  the  street,  then  I  went  down  the  street;  no, 
first  went  down  and  then  —  but  you  do  not  follow 
me;  I  go  before  you,  sir."  Thence  arises  the  com- 
plex style  usually  adopted  by  persons  not  used  to 
narration.  They  tumble  into  a  story  and  get  On  as 

'^''''•Loves  Labor  s  Lost,'  V,  I. 


they  can.This  is  scarcely  the  sortof  thing  which  a  man  (  ^^afecspcarc; 
could  foresee.  Ofcourse  a  metaphysician  can  accounts  The  Man 
forit,and,likeColeridge,assureyouthatifhehadnot  (^  Page  j^ 
observed  it,  he  could  have  predicated  it  in  a  moment ; 
but,  nevertheless,  it  is  too  refined  a  conclusion  to  be 
made  out  from  known  premises  by  common  reason- 
ing. Doubtlessthere  is  somereasonwhy negroes  have 
woolly  hair  (and  if  you  look  into  a  philosophical  trea- 
tise, you  will  find  thatthe  author  couldhave  madeout 
that  it  would  be  so,  if  he  had  not,  by  a  mysterious 
misfortune,  known  from  infancy  that  it  was  the  fad:); 
still,  onecouldneverhavesupposedit  one's  self.  And 
in  the  same  manner,  though  the  profounder  critics 
may  explain  in  a  satisfad:ory  and  refined  manner  how 
the  confused  and  undulating  style  of  narration  is 
peculiarly  incident  to  the  mere  multitude,  yet  it  is 
mostlikelythatShakespearederivedhisacquaintance 
with  it  from  the  fad,  from  adual  hearing,  and  not 
from  what  may  be  the  surer  but  is  the  slower  process 
of  metaphysical  dedudtion.  The  best  passage  to  illus- 
trate this  is  that  in  which  the  nurse  gives  a  statement 
of  Juliet's  age ;  but  it  will  not  exadly  suit  our  pages. 
The  following  of  Mrs.  Quickly  will  suffice  : 

**  'Tilly-fally,  Sir  John,  neer  tell  me ;  your  ancient 
swaggerer  comes  not  in  my  doors.  I  was  before  Master 
I'isick,  the  deputy,  t'other  day  ;  and  as  he  said  to  me, 
—  Uwas  no  longer  ago  than  Wednesday  last :  ^Neigh- 
bor ^lickly,'  says  he,  —  Master  Dumb,  our  minister, 
was  by  then,  —  '•Neighbor  ^ickly,'  says  he,  *  receive 
those  that  are  civil ;  for,'  saith  he,  '■you  are  in  an  ill 

name : 


§>^aferspfarf :  1  name:  * —  «ow,'  a  said  so,  I  can  tell  whereupon  :  ^for. 
The  Man    \-^ays  he^  ''you  are  an  honest  woman^  and  well  thought 
Page  36         J  on ;  therefore  take  heed  what  guests  you  receive.  Re- 
ceive,' says  he,  '  no  swaggering  companions.' —  There 
comes  none  here. —  Tou  would  bless  you  to  hear  what 
he  said :  —  no,  Fll  no  swaggerers.''  * 

Now,  it  is  quite  impossible  that  this,  any  more  than 
the  political  reasoning  on  the  parentage  of  Cade, 
which  was  cited  before,  should  have  been  written  by 
one  not  habitually  and  sympathizingly  conversant 
withthe  talkoftheillogical  classes. Shakespeare  feltjif 
we  may  say  so,  the  force  of  the  bad  reasoning.  He  did 
not,  like  a  sharp  logician,  angrily  deted  a  flaw,  and 
set  it  down  as  a  fallacy  of  reference  or  a  fallacy  of 
amphibology.  This  is  not  the  English  way,  though 
Dr.  Whately's  logic  has  been  published  so  long  (and, 
as  he  says  himself,  must  now  be  deemed  to  be  irrefut- 
able, since  no  one  has  ever  offered  any  refutation  of 
it).  Still,  people  in  this  country  do  not  like  to  be 
committed  to  distind:  premises.  They  like  a  Chan- 
cellor of  the  Exchequer  to  say,  "  It  has  during  very 
many  years  been  maintained  by  the  honorable  mem- 
ber for  Montrose  that  two  and  two  make  four, and  I 
am  free  to  say  that  I  think  there  is  a  great  deal  to  be 
said  in  favor  of  that  opinion ;  but,  without  committing 
Her  Majesty's  Government  to  that  proposition  as 
an  abstrad  sentiment,  I  will  go  so  far  as  to  assume  two 
and  two  are  not  sufficient  to  make  five,  which,  with 
the  permission  of  the  House,  will  be  a  sufficient  basis 


:):  cc 


2  King  Henry"  IV,  II.  ^. 


for  all  the  operations  which  I  propose  to  enter  upon  (  Sbafeccptare: 
duringthepresent  year."  We  have  no  doubt  Shakes- -<  The  Man 
peare  reasoned  in  that  way  himself.  Like  any  other  (^  Page  j/ 
Englishman,  when  he  had  a  clear  course  before  him, 
he  rather  liked  toshuffleover  little  hitches  in  the  argu- 
ment, and  on  that  account  he  had  a  great  sympathy 
with  those  who  did  so  too.  He  would  never  have  in- 
terrupted Mrs.  Qiiickly :  he  saw  that  her  mind  was 
going  to  and  fro  over  the  subjed: ;  he  saw  that  it  was 
coming  right,  and  this  was  enough  for  him, — and 
will  be  also  enough  of  this  topic  for  our  readers. 
We  think  we  have  proved  that  Shakespeare  had  an 
enormous  specific  acquaintance  with  the  common 
people;  that  this  can  only  be  obtained  by  sympathy. 
It  likewise  has  a  further  condition. 
In  spiritedness  the  style  of  Shakespeare  is  very  like 
to  that  of  Scott.  The  description  of  a  charge  of  cav- 
alry in  Scott  reads,  as  was  said  before,  as  if  it  was 
written  on  horseback.  A  play  by  Shakespeare  reads 
as  if  it  were  written  in  a  play-house.  The  great  critics 
assure  you  that  a  theatrical  audience  must  be  kept 
awake;  but  Shakespeare  knew  this  of  his  own 
knowledge.  When  you  read  him,  you  feel  a  sensa- 
tion of  motion ;  a  convi6lion  that  there  is  some- 
thing "up";  a  notion  that  not  only  is  something 
being  talked  about,  but  also  that  something  is  being 
done.  We  do  not  imagine  that  Shakespeare  owed 
this  quality  to  his  being  a  player,  but  rather  that  he 
became  a  player  because  he  possessed  this  quality  of 
mind.  For  after  and  notwithstanding  everything 
which  has  [been]  or  may  be  said  against  the  theatrical 

profession. 


^I)afec6pcarc:  \  profession,  It  certainly  does  require  from  those  who 
T  H  E  M  A  N  V  pursue  it  a  certain  quickness  and  liveHness  of  mind. 
P^ge  38  j  Mimics  are  commonly  an  elastic  sort  of  persons, 

and  it  takes  a  little  levity  of  disposition  to  enact 
even  the  "heavy  fathers."  If  a  boy  joins  a  company 
of  strolling  players,  you  may  be  sure  that  he  is  not 
a  "good  boy":  he  may  be  a  trifle  foolish,  or  a 
thought  romantic,  but  certainly  he  is  not  slow. 
And  this  was  in  truth  the  case  with  Shakespeare. 
They  say,  too,  that  in  the  beginning  he  was  a  first- 
rate  link-boy ;  and  the  tradition  is  affefting,  though 
we  fear  it  is  not  quite  certain.  Any  how,  you  feel  about 
Shakespeare  that  he  could  have  been  a  link-boy.  In 
the  same  way  you  feel  he  may  have  been  a  player. 
You  are  sure  at  once  that  he  could  not  have  followed 
any  sedentary  kind  of  life.  But  wheresoever  there 
was  anything  a5led^  in  earnest  or  in  jest,  by  way  of 
mock  representation  or  by  way  of  serious  reality, 
there  he  found  matter  for  his  mind. 
If  anybody  could  have  any  doubt  about  the  liveli- 
ness of  Shakespeare,  let  them  consider  the  chara6ter 
of  Falstaff.  When  a  man  has  created  that  without  a 
capacity  for  laughter,  then  a  blind  man  may  succeed 
in  describing  colors.  Intense  animal  spirits  are  the 
single  sentiment  (if  they  be  a  sentiment)  of  the  en- 
tire character.  If  most  men  were  to  save  up  all  the 
gayety  of  their  whole  lives,  it  would  come  about  to 
the  gayety  of  one  speech  in  Falstaff.  A  morose  man 
might  have  amassed  many  jokes;  might  have  ob- 
served many  details  of  jovial  society;  might  have 
conceived  a  Sir  John  marked  by  rotundity  of  body, 


but  could  hardly  have  imagined  what  we  call  his  ro-  C  ^baikeepearc : 

tundity  of  mind.  We  mean  that  the  animal  spirits  of^  The  Man 

Falstaff  give  him  an  easy,  vague,  diffusive  sagacity  (  P^ge  jp 

which  is  peculiar  to  him.  A  morose  man  —  lago,  for 

example  —  may  know  anything,  and  is  apt  to  know 

a  good  deal;  but  what  he  knows  is  generally  all  in 

corners.  He  knows  No.  i,No.  2,  No.  3,  and  so  on; 

but  there  is  not  anything  continuous  or  smooth  or 

fluent  in  his  knowledge.  Persons  conversant  with 

the  works  of  Hazlitt  will  know  in  a  minute  what  we 

mean.  Everything  which  he  observed  he  seemed  to 

observe  from  a  certain  soreness  of  mind:  he  looked 

at  people  because  they  offended  him;  he  had  the 

same  vivid  notion  of  them  that  a  man  has  of  objefts 

which  grate  on  a  wound  in  his  body.  But  there  is 

nothing  at  all  of  this  in  Falstaff;  on  the  contrary, 

everything  pleases  him,  and  everything  is  food  for 

a  joke.  Cheerfulness  and  prosperity  give  an  easy 

abounding  sagacity  of  mindwhich  nothing  else  does 

give.  Prosperous  people  bound  easily  over  all  the 

surface  of  things  which  their  lives  present  to  them. 

Very  likely  they  keep  to  the  surface;  there  are 

things  beneath  or  above  to  which  they  may  not 

penetrate  or  attain:  but  what  is  on  any  part  of  the 

surface,  that  they  know  well.  "  Lift  not  the  painted 

veil  which  those  who  live  call  life,"'='  and  they  do  not 

lift  it.  What  is  sublime  or  awful  above,  what  is 

"sightless  and  drear "f  beneath, —  these  they  may 

"^Shelley,  Sonnet  {18 18). 
■\Ibid. 

not 


^Ijafereprarf :  ^  not  dream  of.  Nor  is  any  one  piece  or  corner  of  life 
T  H  E  M  A  N  >  so  well  impressed  on  them  as  on  minds  less  happily 
Page 40  J  constituted.  It  is  only  people  who  have  had  a  tooth 

out  that  really  know  the  dentist's  waiting-room. 
Yet  such  people,  for  the  time  at  least,  know  nothing 
but  that  and  their  tooth.  The  easy  and  sympathi- 
zing friend  who  accompanies  them  knows  every- 
thing; hints  gently  at  the  contents  of  the  Times  ^?ind. 
would  cheer  you  with  Lord  Palmerston's  rephes. 
So,  on  a  greater  scale,  the  man  of  painful  experience 
knows  but  too  well  what  has  hurt  him,  and  where 
and  why ;  but  the  happy  have  a  vague  and  rounded 
view  of  the  round  world,  and  such  was  the  knowl- 
edge of  Falstaff. 

It  is  to  be  observed  that  these  high  spirits  are  not  a 
mere  excrescence  or  superficial  point  in  an  experi- 
encing nature;  on  the  contrary,  they  seem  to  be  es- 
sential, if  not  to  its  idea  of  existence,  at  least  to  its 
exercise  and  employment.  How  are  you  to  know 
people  without  talking  to  them  ?  but  how  are  you  to 
talk  to  them  without  tiring  yourself?  A  common 
man  is  exhausted  in  half  an  hour;  Scott  or  Shakes- 
peare could  have  gone  on  for  a  whole  day.  This  is 
perhaps  peculiarly  necessary  for  a  painter  of  English 
life. 

The  basis  of  our  national  character  seems  to  be 
a  certain  energetic  humor,  which  may  be  found  in 
full  vigor  in  old  Chaucer's  time,  and  in  great  per- 
fection in  at  least  one  of  the  popular  writers  of  this 
age,  and  which  is  perhaps  most  easily  described  by 
the  name  of  our  greatest  painter,  —  Hogarth.  It  is 


amusing  to  see  how  entirely  the  efforts  of  critics  and  f  ^l^afeegpeare: 
artists  fail  to  naturalize  in  England  any  other  sort-/  The  Man 
of  painting.  Their  efforts  are  fruitless,  for  the  peo-  (^  Page  41 
pie  painted  are  not  English  people :  they  may  be 
Italians  or  Greeks  or  Jews,  but  it  is  quite  certain  that 
they  are  foreigners.  We  should  not  fancy  that  mod- 
ern art  ought  to  resemble  the  mediaeval.  So  long  as 
artists  attempt  the  same  class  of  paintings  as  Raph- 
ael they  will  not  only  be  inferior  to  Raphael,  but 
they  will  never  please,  as  they  might  please,  the 
English  people.  What  we  want  is  what  Hogarth 
gave  us, — a  representation  of  ourselves.  It  may  be 
that  we  are  wrong;  that  we  ought  to  prefer  some- 
thing of  the  old  world,  some  scene  in  Rome  or 
Athens,  some  tale  from  Carmel  or  Jerusalem.  But, 
after  all,  we  do  not.  These  places  are,  we  think, 
abroad,  and  had  their  greatness  in  former  times :  we 
wish  a  copy  of  what  now  exists,  and  of  what  we  have 
seen.  London  we  know,  and  Manchester  we  know; 
but  where  are  all  these?  It  is  the  same  with  litera- 
ture,— Milton  excepted,and  even  Milton  can  hardly 
be  called  a  popular  writer:  all  great  English  writers 
describe  English  people,  and  in  describing  them 
they  give,  as  they  must  give,  a  large  comic  element ; 
and  speaking  generally,  this  is  scarcely  possible 
except  in  the  case  of  cheerful  and  easy-living  men. 
There  is,  no  doubt,  a  biting  satire,  like  that  of  Swift, 
which  has  for  its  essence  misanthropy ;  there  is  the 
mockery  of  Voltaire,  which  is  based  on  intellediual 
contempt:  but  this  is  not  our  English  humor, —  it 
is  not  that  of  Shakespeare  and  Falstaff;  ours  is  the 

humor 


S>l)afecfipf arc :  |  humor  of  a  man  who  laughs  when  he  speaks,  of 
T  H  E  M  A  N    >  flowing  enjoyment,  of  an  experiencing  nature. 
Page  42  J  Yet  it  would  be  a  great  error  if  we  gave  anything 

like  an  exclusive  prominence  to  this  asped:  of 
Shakespeare.  Thus  he  appeared  to  those  around 
him, —  in  some  degree  they  knew  that  he  was  a 
cheerful  and  humorous  and  happy  man;  but  of  his 
higher  gift  they  knew  less  than  we.  A  great  painter 
of  men  must  (as  has  been  said)  have  a  faculty  of  con- 
versing, but  he  must  also  have  a  capacity  for  soli- 
tude. There  is  much  of  mankind  that  a  man  can 
only  learn  from  himself.  Behind  every  man's  ex- 
ternal life,  which  he  leads  in  company,  there  is  an- 
other which  he  leads  alone,  and  which  he  carries 
with  him  apart.  We  see  but  one  aspedt  of  our  neigh- 
bor, as  we  see  but  one  side  of  the  moon;  in  either 
case  there  is  also  a  dark  half,  which  is  unknown  to  us. 
We  all  come  down  to  dinner,  but  each  has  a  room  to 
himself.  And  if  we  would  study  the  internal  lives  of 
others,  it  seems  essential  that  we  should  begin  with 
our  own.  If  we  study  this  our  datum y  if  we  attain 
to  see  and  feel  how  this  influences  and  evolves  it- 
self in  our  social  and  (so  to  say)  public  life,  then  it  is 
possible  that  we  may  find  in  the  lives  of  others  the 
same  or  analogous  features;  and  if  we  do  not,  then 
at  least  we  may  suspect  that  those  who  want  them 
are  deficient  likewise  in  the  secret  agencies  which  we 
feel  produce  them  in  ourselves.  The  metaphysicians 
assert  that  people  originally  picked  up  the  idea  of 
the  existence  of  other  people  in  this  way.  It  is  or- 
thodox dodrine  that  a  baby  says, "  I  have  a  mouth. 


mamma  has  a  mouth:  therefore  I  am  the  same  spe-  f^l^altefipeare; 
cies  as  mamma.   I  have  a  nose,  papa  has  a  nose;^  The  Man 
therefore   papa  is    the  same   genus  as  me."   But  (^  Page  4j 
whether  or  not  this  ingenious  idea  really  does  or 
does  not  represent  the  ad;ual  process  by  which  we 
originally  obtain  an  acquaintance  with  the  existence 
of  minds  analogous  to  our  own,  it  gives  unques- 
tionably the  process  by  which  we  obtain  our  notion 
of  that  part  of  those  minds  which  they  never  exhibit 
consciously  to  others,  and  which  only  becomes  pre- 
dominant in  secrecy  and  solitude  and  to  themselves. 
Now,  that  Shakespeare  has  this  insight  into  the 
musing  life  of  man,  as  well  as  into  his  social  life,  is 
easy  to  prove ;  take,  for  instance,  the  following  pas- 
sages :  — 

^'■This  batiks  fares  like  to  the  morning  s  war. 

When  dying  clouds  contend  with  growing  light ; 

What  time  the  shepherd,  blowing  of  his  nails. 
Can  neither  call  it  perfeSl  day  nor  night. 

Now  sways  it  this  way,  like  a  mighty  sea 

Forced  by  the  tide  to  combat  with  the  wind ; 

Now  sways  it  that  way,  like  the  selfsame  sea 

Forced  to  retire  by  fury  of  the  wind : 

Sometimes  the  flood  prevails,  and  then  the  wind  ; 

Now  one  the  better,  then  another  best ; 

Both  tugging  to  be  vigors,  breast  to  breast, 

Tet  neither  conqueror  nor  conquered : 

So  is  the  equal  poise  of  this  fell  war. 

Here  on  this  molehill  will  I  sit  me  down. 

'To  whom  God  will,  there  be  the  viSlory  ! 

For 


SbatirBpearc :  "j     For  Margaret  my  queen^  and  Clifford  toOy 
The  Man    >    Have  chid  me  from  the  battle ;  swearing  both 
Page  44  J     'They  prosper  best  of  all  when  I  am  thence. 

Would  I  were  dead  I  if  God's  good  will  were  so  ; 

For  what  is  in  this  world  but  grief  and  woe  ? 

O  God  !  methinks  it  were  a  happy  life^ 

To  be  no  better  than  a  homely  swain  : 

To  sit  upon  a  hill^  as  I  do  now. 

To  carve  out  dials  quaintly,  point  by  point, 

Thereby  to  see  the  minutes  how  they  run,  — 

How  many  make  the  hour  full  complete  ; 

How  many  hours  bring  about  the  day  ; 

How  many  days  will  finish  up  the  year  ; 

How  many  years  a  mortal  man  may  live. 

When  this  is  known,  then  to  divide  the  times ^  — 

So  many  hours  must  I  tend  my  flock  ; 

So  many  hours  must  I  take  my  rest ; 

So  many  hours  must  I  contemplate ; 

So  many  hours  must  I  sport  myself ; 

So  many  days  'my  ewes  have  been  with  young  ; 

So  many  weeks  ere  the  poor  fools  will  yean  ; 

So  many  years  ere  I  shall  shear  the  fleece : 

So  minutes,  hours,  days,  weeks,  months,  and  years. 

Passed  over  to  the  end  they  were  created. 

Would  bring  white  hairs  unto  a  quiet  grave. 

Ah,  what  a  life  were  this  !  how  sweet !  how  lovely  ! 

Gives  not  the  hawthorn  bush  a  sweeter  shade 

To  shepherds,  looking  on  their  silly  sheep. 

Than  doth  a  rich  embroidered  canopy 

To  kings  that  fear  their  subje^s  treachery  ? 

Oh,  yes,  it  doth  ;  a  thousandfold  it  doth. 


And  to  conclude^  —  the  shepherd's  homely  curds y         (  §»()alicfipcare: 

His  cold  thin  drink  out  of  his  leather  bottle ^  I  The  Man 

His  wonted  sleep  under  afresh  tree's  shade  ^  (^  Page  4j 

All  which  secure  and  sweetly  he  enjoys^ 

Is  far  beyond  a  prince's  delicateSy 

His  viands  sparkling  in  a  golden  cup^ 

His  body  couched  in  a  curious  bed. 

When  carCy  mistrust ^  and  treason  wait  on  him."  * 

'■'■Afooly  a  fool  1  —  /  met  a  fool  i'  the  forest, 
A  motley  fool ;  —  a  miserable  world  !  — 
As  I  do  live  by  food,  I  met  a  fool ; 
Who  laid  him  down  and  basked  him  in  the  sun. 
And  railed  on  lady  Fortune  in  good  terms , 
In  good  set  terms  y  —  and  yet  a  motley  fool. 
^ Good-morrow yfooly  quoth  I ;  '  No,  sir,  quoth  he, 
'■Call  me  not  fool,  till  Heaven  hath  sent  me  fortune' : 
And  then  he  drew  a  dial  from  his  poke. 
And  looking  on  it  with  lack-luster  eye. 
Says,  very  wisely, '  It  is  ten  o'clock ; 
'Thus  may  we  see,'  quoth  he,  *  how  the  world  wags  : 
'Tis  but  an  hour  ago  since  it  was  nine ; 
And  after  one  hour  more  'twill  be  eleven  ; 
And  so,  from  hour  to  hour,  we  ripe  and  ripe. 
And  then,  from  hour  to  hour,  we  rot  and  rot,  — 
And  thereby  hangs  a  tale.'  When  I  did  hear 
The  motley  fool  thus  moral  on  the  time. 
My  lungs  began  to  crow  like  chanticleer. 
That  fools  should  be  so  deep-contemplative ; 

*  "J  King  Henry  VI,"  II,  5. 

And 


^bafetfiipcarc:  ^     And  I  did  laugh  sans  intermission. 

The  Man    V    An  hour  by  his  dial."  * 

Page  46  ) 

No  slight  versatility  of  mind  and  pliancy  of  fancy 
could  pass  at  will  from  scenes  such  as  these  to  the 
ward  of  Eastcheap,  and  the  society  which  heard  the 
chimes  at  midnight.  One  of  the  reasons  of  the  rarity 
of  great  imaginative  works  is,  that  in  very  few  cases 
is  this  capacity  for  musing  solitude  combined  with 
that  of  observing  mankind.  A  certain  constitutional 
though  latent  melancholy  is  essential  to  such  a  na- 
ture. This  is  the  exceptional  charadieristic  in  Shakes- 
peare. All  through  his  works  you  feel  you  are  reading 
the  popular  author,  the  successful  man;  but  through 
them  all  there  is  a  certain  tinge  of  musing  sadness 
pervading,  and  as  it  were  softening,  their  gayety .  Not 
a  trace  can  be  found  of  "eating  cares  "  or  narrow  and 
mind-contrading  toil;  but  everywhere  there  is,  in 
addition  to  shrewd  sagacity  and  buoyant  wisdom,  a 
refiningelement  ofchastening sensibility,  which  pre- 
vents sagacity  from  being  rough  and  shrewdness 
from  becoming  cold.  He  had  an  eye  for  either  sort 
of  life:  — 

^^JVhy,  let  the  strucken  deer  go  weep, 

The  hart  ungalled play  ; 
For  some  must  watch,  while  some  must  sleep  : 

So  runs  the  world  away." '\ 

*  ''As  Tou  Like  It,"  II,  7. 
■f  "Hamlet,"  111,2. 


In  another  point  also,  Shakespeare,  as  he  was  must  T  ^l^afeespearc : 
be  carefully  contrasted  with  the  estimate  that  would  <  The  Man 
be  formed  of  him  from  such  delineations  as  that  of  (^  Page  4j 
FalstafF,  and  that  was,  doubtless,  frequently  made  by 
casual,  though  only  by  casual,  frequenters  of  "The 
Mermaid. "It  has  been  said  that  the  mind  of  Shake- 
speare contained  within  it  the  mind  of  Scott;  it  re- 
mains to  be  observed  that  it  contained  also  the  mind 
of  Keats.  For,  beside  the  delineation  of  human  life, 
and  beside  also  the  delineation  of  nature,  there  re- 
mains also  for  the  poet  a  third  subjed:, — the  delinea- 
tion o{ fancies.  Of  course  these,  be  they  what  they 
may,  are  like  to  and  were  originally  borrowed  either 
from  men  or  from  nature, — from  one  or  from  both 
together.  We  know  but  two  things  in  the  simple 
way  of  dire6l  experience,  and  whatever  else  we  know 
must  be  in  some  mode  or  manner  compacted  out  of 
them.Yet "  books  are  a  substantial  world,  both  pure 
and  good,"  and  so  are  fancies  too.  In  all  countries 
men  have  devised  to  themselves  a  whole  series  of 
half-divine  creations,  —  mythologies,  Greek  and 
Roman,  fairies,  angels;  beings  who  may  be,  for 
aught  we  know,  but  with  whom  in  the  meantime  we 
can  attain  to  no  conversation.  The  most  known  of 
these  mythologies  are  the  Greek  and — what  is,  we 
suppose,  the  second  epoch  of  the  Gothic — the  fai- 
ries; and  it  so  happens  that  Shakespeare  has  dealt 
with  them  both,  and  in  a  remarkable  manner.  We  are 
not,  indeed,  of  those  critics  who  profess  simple  and 
unqualified  admiration  for  the  poem  of  "Venus  and 
Adonis."  It  seems  intrinsically,  as  we  know  it  from 

external 


^bakcspcatf :  ^  external  testimony  to  have  been,  a  juvenile  produc- 
The  Man    vtion,  written  when  Shakespeare's  nature  might  be 
Page  48         j  well  expeded  to  be  crude  and  unripened.  Power  is 
shown,  and  power  of  a  remarkable  kind;  but  it  is  not 
displayed  in  a  manner  that  will  please,  or  does  please, 
the  mass  of  men.  In  spite  of  the  name  of  its  author, 
the  poem  has  never  been  popular;  and  surely  this  is 
sufficient.  Nevertheless,  it  is  remarkable  as  a  literary 
exercise,  and  as  a  treatment  of  a  singular  though  un- 
pleasant subjeft.  The  fanciful  class  of  poems  differ 
from  others  in  being  laid,  so  far  as  their  scene  goes,  in 
a  perfedly  unseen  world.  The  type  of  such  produc- 
tions is  Keats's  "  Endymion."  We  mean  that  it  is  the 
type,  not  as  giving  the  abstrad:  perfedion  of  this  sort 
of  art,  but  because  it  shows  and  embodies  both  its  ex- 
cellences and  defeds  in  a  very  marked  and  promi- 
nent manner.  In  that  poem  there  are  no  passions  and 
no  aftions,  there  is  no  art  and  no  life;  but  there  is 
beauty,  and  that  is  meant  to  be  enough,  and  to  a 
reader  of  one-and-twenty  it  is  enough  and  more. 
What  are  exploits  or  speeches,  what  is  C^sar  or 
Coriolanus,  what  is  a  tragedy  like  "  Lear,"  or  a  real 
view  of  human  life  in  any  kind  whatever,  to  people 
who  do  not  know  and  do  not  care  what  human  life 
is  ?  I  n  early  youth  it  is  perhaps  not  true  that  the  pas- 
sions,taken  generally,are  particularly  violent,  or  that 
the  imagination  is  in  any  remarkable  degree  power- 
ful ;  but  it  is  certain  that  the  fancy  (which,  though  it 
be  in  the  last  resort  but  a  weak  stroke  of  that  same 
faculty  which  when  it  strikes  hard  we  call  imagina- 
tion, may  yet  for  this  purpose  be  looked  on  as  dis- 


tin6t)  is  particularly  wakeful,  and  that  the  gentler  (  S>l^afee£(peart: 

species  of  passions  are  more  absurd  than  they  are<  The  Man 

afterwards.  And  the  literature  of  this  period  of  human  (^  Page  4p 

life  runs  naturally  away  from  the  real  world;  away 

from  the  less  ideal  portion  of  it,  —  from  stocks  and 

stones,  and  aunts  and  uncles,  —  and  rests  on  mere 

half-embodied  sentimentSjwhichinthehandsof  great 

poets  assume  a  kind  of  semi-personality,  and  are, 

to  the  distindlion  between  things  and  persons,  "as 

moonlight  unto  sunlight,  and  as  water  unto  wine."  * 

The  "Sonnets  '  of  Shakespeare  belong  exadly  to 

the  same  school  of  poetry.  They  are  not  the  sort  of 

verses  to  take  any  particular  hold  upon  the  mind 

permanently  and  forever,  but  at  a  certain  period  they 

take  too  much.  For  a  young  man  to  read  in  the  spring 

of  the  year,  among  green  fields  and  in  gentle  air,  they 

aretheideal.  As  first-of-April  poetry  they  are  perfedb. 

The  "  Midsummer  Night's  Dream"  is  of  another 

order.  If  the  question  were  to  be  decided  by  "Venus 

and  Adonis,"  in  spite  of  the  unmeasured  panegyrics 

of  many  writers,  we  should  be  obliged  in  equity  to 

hold  that,  as  a  poet  of  mere  fancy  Shakespeare  was 

much  inferior  to  the  late  Mr.  Keats,  and  even  to 

meaner  men.  Moreover,  we  should  have  been  pre- 

paredwithsomerefinedreasoningstoshowthatitwas 

unlikely  that  a  poet  with  so  much  hold  on  reality,  in 

life  and  nature,  both  in  solitudeand  in  society,  should 

have  also  a  similar  command  over  unreBl'ity :  should 

possess  a  command  not  only  of  flesh  and  blood,butof 

*'Tennyson^  "  Locks  ley  Haliy 

"  the 


S»I)afet6pcarr:  "^  the  imaginary  entities  which  the  self-inworking  fancy 
The  Man  >  brings  forth,  —  impalpable  conceptions  of  mere 
Page  JO  J  mind ;  quoedam  simulacra  mod'ts pallentia  miris;  ''*  thin 
ideaSjwhich  come  we  know  not  whence,  and  are  given 
us  we  know  not  why.  But  unfortunately  for  this  in- 
genious if  not  profound  suggestion,  Shakespeare  in 
fadl  possessed  the  very  faculty  which  it  tendsrto  prove 
that  he  would  not  possess.  He  could  paint  Poins  and 
ralstaff,buthe  excelledalsoinfairy legends.  He  had 
such 

"  Seething  brains^ 
Such  shaping  fantasies,  that  apprehend 
More  than  cool  reason  ever  comprehends." ■\ 

As,  for  example,  the  idea  of  Puck  or  Queen  Mab,  of 
Ariel,  or  such  a  passage  as  the  following :  — 

Puck.  How  now,  spirit !  whither  wander  you  ? 
Fairy.  Over  hill,  over  dale, 

thorough  bush,  thorough  briar. 

Over  park,  over  pale, 
'Thorough  flood,  thorough  fire, 
I  do  wander  everywhere. 
Swifter  than  the  moons  sphere ; 
And  I  serve  the  fairy  queen, 
To  dew  her  orbs  upon  the  green  : 
The  cowslips  tall  her  pensioners  be ; 
In  their  gold  coats  spots  you  see,  — ■ 

*  ^'-Certain  wonderfully  pale  phantoms." — Lucretius, 
•j"  '■'- Midsummer  Night's  Dream,"  V.  i. 


T'hose  be  rubies,  fairy  favors ,  (  ^bafecspcarc : 

In  those  freckles  live  their  savors :  ^  T  h  e  M  a  n 

/  must  go  seek  sojne  dewdrops  here,  (  Page  57 

And  hang  a  pearl  in  every  cowslip's  ear. 

Farewell,  thou  lob  of  spirits ;  Til  begone : 

Our  queen  and  all  our  elves  come  here  anon. 

Puck..  The  king  doth  keep  his  revels  here  to-night  : 

Take  heed  the  queen  co?ne  not  within  his  sight. 

For  Oberon  is  passing  fell  and  wrath. 

Because  that  she,  as  her  attendant,  hath 

A  lovely  boy,  stolen  from  an  Indian  king,  — 

She  never  had  so  sweet  a  changeling  ; 

And  jealous  Oberon  would  have  the  child 

Knight  of  his  train,  to  trace  the  forests  wild: 

But  she  perforce  withholds  the  loved  boy. 

Crowns  him  with  flowers,  and  makes  him  all  her  joy  ; 
And  now  they  never  meet  in  grove  or  green. 

By  fountain  clear  or  spangled  starlight  sheen. 

But  they  do  square,  that  all  their  elves,  for  fear. 

Creep  into  acorn  cups,  and  hide  them  there. 

Fairy.  Kit  her  I  ynistake  your  shape  and  making  quite. 

Or  else  you  are  that  shrewd  and  knavish  sprite 

Called  Robin  Goodfellow  :  are  you  not  he 

That  frights  the  maidens  of  the  villagery  ; 

Skims  milk  ;  and  sofnetimes  labors  in  the  quern, 

And  bootless  makes  the  breathless  housewife  churn  ; 

And  sometime  makes  the  drink  to  bear  no  harm. ; 

Misleads  night-wanderers,  laughing  at  their  harm  ? 

Those  that  Hobgoblin  call  you,  and  sweet  Puck, 

Tou  do  their  work,  and  they  shall  have  good  luck  : 

Are  not  you  he  ? 

Puck. 


^Jjakespeare:  ^     Puck.  Fairy,  thou  speak' st  aright ; 

The  Man    V    I  am  that  fnerry  wanderer  of  the  night. 

Page  52  J     1  jest  to  Oberon,  and  make  him  smile. 

When  I  a  fat  and  bean  fed  horse  beguile. 
Neighing  in  likeness  of  a  filly  foal : 
And  sometime  lurk  I  in  a  gossip's  bowl. 
In  very  likeness  of  a  roasted  crab ; 
And  when  she  drinks,  against  her  lips  I  bob. 
And  on  her  withered  dewlap  pour  the  ale. 
'The  wisest  aunt,  telling  the  saddest  tale. 
Sometime  for  three  foot  stool  mistaketh  7ne ; 
Then  slip  I  from  her  bum,  down  topples  she. 
And  "  tailor"  cries,  and  falls  into  a  cough  ; 
And  then  the  whole  quire  hold  their  hips  and  loffe. 
And  waxen  in  their  mirth,  and  neeze,  and  swear 
A  merrier  hour  was  never  wasted  there.  — 
But  room  now.  Fairy  !  here  comes  Oberon. 
Fairy.  And  here  my  mistress. —  Would  that  he 
were  gone  !  * 

Probably  he  believed  in  these  things.  Why  not? 
everybody  else  believed  in  them  then.  They  suit  our 
climate.  As  the  Greek  mythology  suits  the  keen  At- 
tic sky,  the  fairies  indistind:  and  half-defined,  suit  a 
land  of  mild  mists  and  gentle  airs.  They  confuse  the 
"maidens  of  the  villagery";  they  are  the  paganism 
of  the  South  of  England. 

Can  it  be  made  out  what  were  Shakespeare's  politi- 
cal views  ?  We  think  it  certainly  can,  and  that  without 

*  ^^Midsummer  Night's  Dream,"  II,  I. 


difficulty.  From  the  English  historical  plays,  it  dis-  r^()aliceipearc: 
tindly  appears  that  heaccepted,like  everybody  then, -<^  The  Man 
theConstitutionof  his  country.  His  lot  was  not  cast  {^Pagejj 
in  an  age  of  political  controversy,  nor  of  reform. 
What  was,  was  from  of  old.  The  Wars  of  the  Roses 
had  made  it  very  evident  how  much  room  there  was 
for  the  evils  incident  to  an  hereditary  monarchy  (for 
instance,  those  of  a  controverted  succession)  and  the 
evils  incident  to  an  aristocracy  (as  want  of  public 
spirit  and  audacious  selfishness)  to  arise  and  continue 
within  the  realm  of  England.  Yet  they  had  not  re- 
pelled, and  had  barely  disconcerted,  our  conservative 
ancestors.  They  had  not  become  Jacobins ;  they  did 
not  concur — and  history,  except  in  Shakespeare, 
hardly  does  justice  to  them — in  Jack  Cade's  notion 
that  the  laws  should  come  out  of  his  mouth,  or  that 
the  commonwealth  was  to  be  reformed  by  interlocu- 
tors in  this  scene:  — 

George.  /  fell  thee  Jack  Cade  the  clothier  means  to 
dress  the  commonwealth^  and  turn  ity  and  set  a  new  nap 
upon  it. 

John.  So  he  had  need^for  'tis  threadbare.  IVell,  I  say 
it  was  never  a  merry  world  in  England  since  gentle- 
men came  up. 

George.  O  miserable  age  I  virtue  is  not  regarded  in 
handicraftsmen. 

John.  The  nobility  think  scorn  to  go  in  leather  aprons. 
George.  Nay^  more,  the  king's  council  are  no  good 
workmen. 

John.  T^rue ;  and  yet  it  is  said.  Labor  in  thy  vocation  ; 

which 


^j^atuspcarc:  ^  which  is  as  much  as  to  say  as.  Let  the  magistrates  be 
T  H  E  M  A  N  \  laboring  men  :  and  therefore  should  we  be  magistrates. 
Page 34         J  George.  Thou  hast  hit  it  ;for  there's  no  better  sign  of 

a  brave  mind  than  a  hard  hand. 

John.  I  see  them  !  I  see  them  I  * 

The  English  people  did  see  them  and  know  them, 
and  therefore  have  rejed:edthem.  An  audience  which, 
bond  fide,  entered  into  the  merit  of  this  scene,  would 
never  believe  in  everybody's  suffrage.  They  would 
know  that  there  is  such  a  thing  as  nonsense;  and 
when  a  man  has  once  attained  to  that  deep  concep- 
tion, you  may  be  sure  of  him  ever  after.  And  though 
it  would  be  absurd  to  say  that  Shakespeare  originated 
this  idea,  or  that  disbelief  in  simple  democracy  is  ow- 
ing to  his  teachings  or  suggestions,  yet  it  may,  never- 
theless, be  truly  said  that  he  shared  in  the  peculiar 
knowledge  of  men,  and  also  possessed  the  pecuHar 
constitution  of  mind,  which  engenders  this  effect. 
The  author  of  "Coriolanus"  never  believed  in  a 
mob,  and  did  something  towards  preventing  any- 
body else  from  doing  so.  But  this  political  idea  was 
notexad;ly  the  strongest  in  Shakespeare's  mind.  We 
think  he  had  two  other  stronger,  or  as  strong. 
First,  the  feeling  of  loyalty  to  the  ancient  polity  of 
this  country, —  not  because  it  was  good,  but  because 
it  existed.  In  his  time,  people  no  more  thought  of 
the  origin  of  the  monarchy  than  they  did  of  the 
origin  of  the  Mendip  Hills.  The  one  had  always 
been  there,  and  so  had  the  other.  God  (such  was  the 


*  <c 


2  King  Henry  VI"  IV,  2. 


common  notion)  had  made  both,  and  one  as  much  f^^afeesipeare: 
as  the  other.  Everywhere,  in  that  age,  the  common  <  The  Man 
modes  of  poHtical  speech  assumed  the  existence  of  (  Page  js 
certain  utterly  national  institutions,  and  would  have 
been  worthless  and  nonsensical  except  on  that  as- 
sumption. This  national  habit  appears,  as  it  ought 
to  appear,  in  our  national  dramatist.  A  great  divine 
tells  us  that  the  Thirty-nine  Articles  are  "  forms  of 
thought," — inevitable  conditions  of  the  religious 
understanding:  in  politics,  "King,  Lords,  and 
Commons  "  are,  no  doubt, "  forms  of  thought "  to  the 
great  majority  of  Englishmen, —  in  these  they  live, 
and  beyond  these  they  never  move.  They  can't 
reason  on  the  removal  (such  is  the  notion)  of  the 
English  Channel,  nor  St.  George's  Channel,  nor 
can  you  of  the  English  Constitution  in  like  manner. 
It  is  to  most  of  us,  and  to  the  happiest  of  us,  a  thing 
immutable ;  and  such,  no  doubt,  it  was  to  Shake- 
speare, which,  if  any  one  would  have  proved,  let  him 
refer  at  random  to  any  page  of  the  historical  Enghsh 
plays. 

The  second  peculiar  tenet  which  we  ascribe  to  his 
political  creed  is  a  disbehef  in  the  middle  classes. 
We  fear  he  had  no  opinion  of  traders.  In  this  age, 
we  know,  it  is  held  that  the  keeping  of  a  shop  is 
equivalent  to  a  political  education.  Occasionally,  in 
country  villages,  where  the  trader  sells  everything, 
he  is  thought  to  know  nothing,  and  has  no  vote; 
but  in  a  town  where  he  is  a  householder  (as  indeed 
he  is  in  the  country),  and  sells  only  one  thing,  there 
we  assume  that  he  knows  everything.  And  this  as- 
sumption 


^I)atiefij)earc:  \  sumption  is,  in  the  opinion  of  some  observers,  con- 
The  Man  >  firmed  by  the  fad.  Sir  Walter  Scott  used  to  relate 
Page  56  j  that  when,  after  a  trip  to  London,  he  returned  to 

Tweedside,  he  always  found  the  people  in  that  dis- 
trid:  knew  more  of  politics  than  the  Cabinet/''  And 
so  it  is  with  the  mercantile  community  in  modern 
times.  If  you  are  a  Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer,  it 
is  possible  that  you  may  be  acquainted  with  fi- 
nance ;  but,  if  you  sell  figs,  it  is  certain  that  you  will. 
Now,  we  nowhere  find  this  laid  down  in  Shake- 
speare. On  the  contrary,  you  will  generally  find 
that  when  a  "citizen"  is  mentioned,  he  generally 
does  or  says  something  absurd.  Shakespeare  had  a 
clear  perception  that  it  is  possible  to  bribe  a  class  as 
well  as  an  individual,  and  that  personal  obscurity  is 
but  an  insecure  guarantee  for  political  disinterested- 
ness. 

'■'■Moreover^  he  hath  left  you  all  his  walks  ^ 
His  private  arbors  and  new  planted-orchards^ 
On  this  side  'Tiber ;  he  hath  left  themyou^ 
And  to  your  heirs  forever  :  common  pleasures. 
To  walk  abroad  and  recreate  yourselves. 
Here  was  a  C^sar  I  when  comes  such  another  ?  ''  '\ 

He  everywhere  speaks  in  praise  of  a  tempered  and 
ordered  and  qualified  polity,  in  which  the  pecuniary 
classes  have  a  certain  influence,  but  no  more;  and 

*  Letter  to  Sidmouth,  April  20,  182 1 ;  in  Lockhart, 

Vol.  V,  Chap.  Hi. 
-j*  "  Julius  Ccesar,'  III,  2. 


shows  in  every  page  a  keen  sensibility  to  the  large  T^batL^fiptare: 
views  and  high-souled  energies,  the  gentle  refine--/  The  Man 
ments  and  disinterested  desires,  in  which  those  [^  Page  ^7 
classes  are  likely  to  be  especially  deficient.  He  is 
particularly  the  poet  of  personal  nobility,  though 
throughout  his  writings  there  is  a  sense  of  freedom ; 
just  as  Milton  is  the  poet  of  freedom,  though  with 
an  underlying  reference  to  personal  nobility:  in- 
deed, we  might  well  exped;  our  two  poets  to  com- 
bine the  appreciation  of  a  rude  and  generous  liberty 
with  that  of  a  delicate  and  refined  nobleness,  since 
it  is  the  union  of  these  two  elements  that  charadter- 
izes  our  society  and  their  experience. 
There  are  two  things — good-tempered  sense  and 
ill-tempered  sense.  In  our  remarks  on  the  charadler 
of  FalstafF,  we  hope  we  have  made  it  very  clear  that 
Shakespeare  had  the  former;  we  think  it  nearly  as 
certain  that  he  possessed  the  latter  also.  An  instance 
of  this  might  be  taken  from  that  contempt  for  the 
perspicacity  of  the  bourgeoisie  which  we  have  just 
been  mentioning.  It  is  within  the  limits  ofwhat  may 
be  called  malevolent  sense  to  take  extreme  and  ha- 
bitual pleasure  in  remarking  the  foolish  opinions,  the 
narrow  notions,and  [the]  fallacious  deductions  which 
seem  to  cling  to  the  pompous  and  prosperous  man 
of  business.  Ask  him  his  opinion  of  the  currency 
question  and  he  puts  "bills"  and  "bullion"  to- 
gether in  a  sentence,  and  he  does  not  seem  to  care 
what  he  puts  between  them.  But  a  more  proper  in- 
stance of  (what  has  an  odd  sound)  the  malevolence 
of  Shakespeare  is  to  be  found  in  the  play  of  "Measure 

for 


S>I)atie6pearc:^  for  Measure."  We  agree  with  Hazlitt  this  play 
The  Man  V  seems  to  be  written,  perhaps  more  than  any  other, 
Page  58  \  con  amore^  and  with  a  reHsh ;  and  this  seems  to  be  the 

reason  why,  notwithstanding  the  unpleasant  nature 
of  its  plot  and  the  absence  of  any  very  attractive 
charader,  it  is  yet  one  of  the  plays  which  take  hold 
on  the  mind  most  easily  and  most  powerfully.  Now, 
the  entire  charafter  of  Angelo,  which  is  the  expres- 
sive feature  of  the  piece,  is  nothing  but  a  successful 
embodiment  of  the  pleasure,  the  malevolent  pleas- 
ure, which  a  warm-blooded  and  expansive  man  takes 
in  watching  the  rare,  the  dangerous  and  inanimate 
excesses  of  the  constrained  and  cold-blooded.  One 
seems  to  see  Shakespeare,  with  his  bright  eyes  and 
his  large  lips  and  buoyant  face,  watching  with  a  pleas- 
ant excitement  the  excesses  of  his  thin-lipped  and 
calculating  creation,  as  though  they  were  the  ex- 
cesses of  a  real  person.  It  is  the  complete  picture  of 
a  natural  hypocrite,  who  does  not  consciously  dis- 
guise strong  impulses,  but  whose  very  passions 
seem  of  their  own  accord  to  have  disguised  them- 
selves and  retreated  into  the  recesses  of  the  charac- 
ter, yet  only  to  recur  even  more  dangerously  when 
their  proper  period  is  expired,  when  the  will  is 
cheated  into  security  by  their  absence,  and  the  world 
(and  it  may  be  the  "judicious  person"  himself)  is 
impressed  with  a  sure  reliance  in  his  chilling  and  re- 
markable rectitude. 

It  has,  we  believe,  been  doubted  whether  Shakes- 
peare was  a  man  much  conversant  with  the  intimate 
society  of  women.  Of  course  no  one  denies  that  he 


possessed  a  great  knowledge  of  them, —  acapitalac-  T  ^l)afec6pcare: 
quaintance  with  their  excellences,  faults  and  foibles  ;<  The  Man 
but  it  has  been  thought  that  this  was  the  result  (  Page  jp 
rather  of  imagination  than  of  society,  of  creative 
fancy  rather  than  of  perceptive  experience.  Now,  that 
Shakespeare  possessed,  among  other  singular  quali- 
ties, a  remarkable  imaginative  knowledge  ofwomen, 
is  quite  certain,  for  he  was  acquainted  with  the  so- 
liloquies of  women.  A  woman,  we  suppose,  like  a 
man,  must  be  alone  in  order  to  speak  a  soliloquy. 
After  the  greatest  possible  intimacy  and  experience, 
it  must  still  be  imagination,  or  fancy  at  least,  which 
tells  any  man  what  a  woman  thinks  of  herself  and  to 
herself.  There  will  still  —  get  as  near  the  limits  of 
confidence  or  observation  as  you  can  —  be  a  space 
which  must  be  filled  up  from  other  means.  Men  can 
only  divine  the  truth;  reserve,  indeed,  is  a  part  of 
its  charm.  Seeing,  therefore,  that  Shakespeare  had 
done  what  necessarily  and  certainly  must  be  done 
without  experience,  we  were  in  some  doubt  whether 
he  might  not  have  dispensed  with  it  altogether.  A 
grave  reviewer  cannot  know  these  things.  We 
thought  indeed  of  reasoning  that  since  the  deline- 
ations of  women  in  Shakespeare  were  admitted  to 
be  first-rate,  it  should  follow  —  at  least  there  was  a 
fair  presumption  —  that  no  means  or  aid  had  been 
wanting  to  their  produdion ;  and  that  consequently 
we  ought,  in  the  absence  of  distind:  evidence,  to  as- 
sume that  personal  intimacy  as  well  as  solitary 
imagination  had  been  concernedin  their  produdion. 
And  we  meant  to  cite  the  "  questions  about  Octa- 


via. 


S>|)afees(pcarc:  ^  via,"  which  Lord  Byron,  who  thought  he  had  the 
The  Man  > means  of  knowing,  declared  to  be  "woman  all 
Page  60  J  over."'^ 

But  all  doubt  was  removed  and  all  conjecture  set  to 
rest  by  the  coming  in  of  an  ably  dressed  friend  from 
the  external  world,  who  mentioned  that  the  lan- 
guage of  Shakespeare's  women  was  essentially  fe- 
male language;  that  there  were  certain  points  and 
peculiarities  in  the  English  of  cultivated  English- 
women which  made  it  a  language  of  itself,  which 
must  be  heard  familiarly  in  order  to  be  known.  And 
he  added,  "  except  a  greater  use  of  words  of  Latin 
derivation,  as  was  natural  in  an  age  when  ladies  re- 
ceived a  learned  education,  a  few  words  not  now 
proper,  a  few  conceits  that  were  the  fashion  of  the 
time,  and  there  is  the  very  same  English  in  the 
women's  speeches  in  Shakespeare."  He  quoted:  — 

^■'-'Think  not  I  love  him,  though  I  ask  for  him  : 
'T'is  but  a  peevish  boy ;  — yet  he  talks  well;  — 
But  what  care  I  for  words  ?  yet  words  do  well. 
When  he  that  speaks  them  pleases  those  that  hear. 
It  is  a  pretty  youth  :  —  not  very  pretty  :  — 
But  sure,  he  s  proud  and  yet  his  pride  becomes  him  : 
He'll  make  a  proper  man.  T'he  best  thing  in  him 
Is  his  complexion ;  and  faster  than  his  tongue 
Did  make  offense,  his  eye  did  heal  it  up. 
He  is  not  tall ;  yet  for  his  years  he's  tall : 
His  leg  is  but  so-so  ;  and  yet  'tis  well. 
Inhere  was  a  pretty  redness  in  his  lip  ; 


# 


Journal,  Nov.  16,  18 ij. 


A  little  riper  and  more  lusty  red  i  ^I;afecgpeare: 

T^han  that  mixed  in  his  cheek :  it  was  just  the  difference  I  The  Man 

Betwixt  the  constant  red  and  mingled  damask.  (^  Page  6i 

'There  be  some  women^  Silvius,  had  they  marked  him 

In  parcels  as  I  did^  would  have  gone  near 

To  fall  in  love  with  him  :  but  for  my  party 

I  love  him  not^  nor  hate  him  not :  and  yet 

I  have  more  cause  to  hate  him  than  to  love  him : 

For  what  had  he  to  do  to  chide  at  me  ? 

He  said  my  eyes  were  blacky  and  my  hair  black. 

And,  now  I  am  remembered,  scorned  at  me ; 

I  marvel  why  I  answered  not  again  : 

But  that's  all  one ;  "  * 

and  the  passage  of  Perdita's  cited  before  about  the 
daffodils  that 

''Take 
The  winds  of  March  with  beauty  ;  violets  dim. 
But  sweeter  than  the  lids  of  Juno's  eyes. 
Or  Cythereds  breath  "; 

and  said  that  these  were  conclusive.  But  we  have  not, 
ourselves,  heard  young  ladies  converse  in  that  man- 
ner. 

Perhaps  it  is  in  his  power  of  delineating  women 
that  Shakespeare  contrasts  most  strikingly  with  the 
greatest  master  of  the  art  of  dialogue  in  antiquity, — 
we  mean  Plato.  It  will  no  doubt  be  said  that  the  de- 
lineation of  women  did  not  fall  within  Plato's  plan; 

*  ''As  Like  //,"  ///,  5. 

that 


^I)afee6pcarc:  ^  that  men's  life  was  in  that  age  so  separate  and  pre- 
The  Man  V  dominant  that  it  could  be  delineated  by  itself  and 
Page  62  J  apart:  and  no  doubt  these  remarks  are  very  true. 
But  what  led  Plato  to  form  that  plan  ?  What  led  him 
to  seledl  that  peculiar  argumentative  aspect  of  life, 
in  which  the  masculine  element  is  in  so  high  a  degree 
superior?  We  believe  that  he  did  it  because  he  felt 
that  he  could  paint  that  kind  of  scene  much  better 
than  he  could  paint  any  other.  If  a  person  will  con- 
sider the  sort  of  conversation  that  was  held  in  the 
cool  summer  morning,  when  Socrates  was  knocked 
up  early  to  talk  definitions  and  philosophy  with  Pro- 
tagoras, he  will  feel,  not  only  that  women  would 
fancy  such  dialogues  to  be  certainly  stupid,  and  very 
possibly  to  be  without  meaning,  but  also  that  the 
side  of  chara6ter  which  is  there  represented  is  one 
from  which  not  only  the  feminine  but  even  the  epi- 
cene element  is  nearly  if  not  perfectly  excluded.  It 
is  the  intelled:  surveying  and  delineating  intelled:ual 
charadleristics.  We  have  a  dialogue  of  thinking  fac- 
ulties :  the  charader  of  every  man  is  delineated  by 
showing  us,  not  his  mode  of  adion  or  feeling,  but 
his  mode  of  thinking,  alone  and  by  itself.  The  pure 
mind,  purged  of  all  passion  and  affeftion,  strives  to 
view  and  describe  others  in  like  manner;  and  the 
singularity  is,  that  the  likenesses  so  taken  are  so 
good, — that  the  accurate  copying  of  the  merely  in- 
tellediual  effects  and  indications  of  charader  gives  so 
true  and  so  firm  an  impression  of  the  whole  charac- 
ter,— that  a  daguerreotype  of  the  mind  should  al- 
most seem  to  be  a  delineation  of  the  life.  But  though 


in  the  hand  of  a  consummate  artist  such  a  way  of  i  ^!)ak€fipearc: 
representation  may  in  some  sense  succeed  in  the  case  <  The  Man 
of  men,  it  would  certainly  seem  sure  to  fail  in  the  (^  Pagf  63 
case  of  women.  The  mere  intelled:  of  woman  is  a 
mere  nothing:  it  originates  nothing,  it  transmits 
nothing,  it  retains  nothing ;  it  has  little  life  of  its  own, 
and  therefore  it  can  hardly  be  expected  to  attain  any 
vigor.  Of  the  lofty  Platonic  world  of  the  ideas  which 
the  soul  in  the  old  dodirine,  was  to  arrive  at  by  pure 
and  continuous  reasoning,  women  were  never  ex- 
peded  to  know  anything.  Plato,  though  Mr.  Grote 
denies  that  he  was  a  practical  man,  was  much  too 
pradiical  for  that:  he  reserved  his  teaching  for  people 
whose  belief  was  regulated  and  induced  in  some 
measure  by  abstract  investigations;  who  had  an  in- 
terest in  the  pure  and  (as  it  were)  geometrical  truth 
itself;  who  had  an  intelleftual  character  (apart  from 
and  accessory  to  their  other  chara6ler)  capable  of 
being  viewed  as  a  large  and  substantial  existence. 
Shakespeare's  being,  like  a  woman's,  worked  as  a 
whole.  He  was  capable  of  intelledual  abstrad:ed- 
ness,  but  commonly  he  was  touched  with  the  sense 
of  earth.  One  thinks  of  him  as  firmly  set  on  our 
coarse  world  of  common  clay,  but  from  it  he  could 
paint  the  moving  essence  of  thoughtful  feeling, — 
which  is  the  best  refinement  of  the  best  women. 
Imogen  or  Juliet  would  have  thought  little  of  the 
conversation  of  Gorgias. 

On  few  subjects  has  more  nonsense  been  written 
than  on  the  learning  of  Shakespeare.  In  former 
times  the  established  tenet  was,  that  he  was  ac- 
quainted 


^I)afee6pcare:  ^  qualnted  with  the  entire  range  of  the  Greek  and 
The  Man  >  Latin  classics,  and  famiharly  resorted  to  Sophocles 
Page  64  J  and  iEschylus  as  guides  and  models.  This  creed  re- 
posed not  so  much  on  any  painful  or  elaborate  criti- 
cism of  Shakespeare's  plays,  as  on  one  of  the  a  priori 
assum.ptions  permitted  to  the  indolence  of  the  wise 
old  world.  It  was  then  considered  clear,  by  all  critics, 
that  no  one  could  write  good  English  who  could  not 
also  write  bad  Latin.  Questioning  skepticism  has 
rejected  this  axiom,  and  refuted  with  contemptuous 
facility  the  slight  attempt  which  had  been  made  to 
verify  this  case  of  it  from  the  evidence  of  the  plays 
themselves.  But  the  new  school,  not  content  with 
showing  that  Shakespeare  was  no  formed  or  elabo- 
rate scholar,  propounded  the  idea  that  he  was  quite 
ignorant,  just  as  Mr.  Croker  "demonstrates"  that 
Napoleon  Bonaparte  could  scarcely  write  or  read. 
The  answer  is,  that  Shakespeare  wrote  his  plays, 
and  that  those  plays  show  not  only  a  very  powerful, 
but  also  a  very  cultivated  mind.  A  hard  student 
Shakespeare  was  not,  yet  he  was  a  happy  and  pleased 
reader  of  interesting  books.  He  was  a  natural  reader: 
when  a  book  was  dull  he  put  it  down,  when  it  looked 
fascinating  he  took  it  up;  and  the  consequence  is, 
that  he  remembered  and  mastered  what  he  read. 
Lively  books,  read  with  lively  interest  leave  strong 
and  living  recolleftions.  The  instruftors,  no  doubt, 
say  that  they  ought  not  to  do  so,  and  inculcate  the 
necessity  of  dry  reading;  yet  the  good  sense  of  a 
busy  public  has  pradically  discovered  that  what  is 
read  easily  is  recolledled  easily,  and  what  is  read  with 


difficulty  is  remembered  with  more.  It  is  certain  that  C  ^|)aliefipcate : 
Shakespeare  read  the  novels  of  his  time,  for  he  has  <  The  Man 
founded  on  them  the  stories  of  his  plays;  he  read  (  Page  6j 
Plutarch,  for  his  words  still  live  in  the  dialogue  of 
the  "proud  Roman  "plays;  and  it  is  remarkable  that 
Montaigne  is  the  only  philosopher  that  Shakes- 
peare can  be  proved  to  have  read,  because  he  deals 
more  than  any  other  philosopher  with  the  first  im- 
pressions of  things  which  exist.  On  the  other  hand, 
it  may  be  doubted  if  Shakespeare  would  have  pe- 
rused his  commentators.  Certainly  he  would  have 
never  read  a  page  of  this  review;  and  we  go  so  far  as 
to  doubt  whether  he  would  have  been  pleased  with 
the  admirable  discourses  of  M.  Guizot,  which  we 
ourselves,  though  ardent  admirers  of  his  style  and 
ideas,  still  find  it  a  little  difficult  to  read;  and  what 
would  he  have  thought  of  the  following  speculations 
of  an  anonymous  individual,  whose  notes  have  been 
recently  published  in  a  fine  odavo  by  Mr.  Collier, 
and  according  to  the  periodical  essayists,"  contribute 
valuable  suggestions  to  the  illustration  of  the  im- 
mortal bard"? 


THE    TPFO    GENTLEMEN   OF    VERONA 

Act  I.  Scene  I. 

P.  g2.  The  reading  of  the  subsequent  line  has  hitherto 
been 

"'Tis  true;  for  you  are  over  boots  in  love"; 

but 


^bafecfiiprare:  "I  hut  the  manuscript  corrector  of  the  Folio^  ^6j2j  has 
T  H  E  M  A  N    V      changed  it  to 

age  00         J         "'Tis  true;  hut  you  are  over  boots  in  love," 

which  seems  more  consistent  with  the  course  of  the  dia- 
logue :  for  Proteus  remarking  that  Leander  had  been 
"  more  than  over  shoes  in  love"  with  Hero,  Valentine 
answers  that  Vvottn^  was  even  more  deeply  in  love  than 
Leander.  Proteus  observes  of  the  fable  of  Hero  and 
Leander  — 

"That's  a  deep  story  of  a  deeper  love, 
For  he  was  more  than  over  shoes  in  love." 

Valentine  retorts :  — 

"'Tis  true;  but  you  are  over  boots  in  love." 

For  instead  of  yaVit  was  perhaps  caught  by  the  compos- 
itor from  the  preceding  line. 

It  is  difficult  to  fancy  Shakespeare  perusing  a  vol- 
ume of  such  annotations,  though  we  allow  that  we 
admire  them  ourselves.  As  to  the  controversy  on 
his  school  learning,  we  have  only  to  say  that  though 
the  alleged  imitations  of  the  Greek  tragedians  are 
mere  nonsense,  yet  there  is  clear  evidence  that 
Shakespeare  received  the  ordinary  grammar-school 
education  of  his  time,  and  that  he  had  derived  from 
the  pain  and  suffering  of  several  years  not  exadily  an 
acquaintance  with  Greek  or  Latin,  but,  like  Eton 
boys,  a  firm  convidion  that  there  are  such  lan- 
guages. 


Another  controversy  has  been  raised  as  to  whether  T^Ijakceipearc: 
Shakespeare  was  religious.  In  the  old  editions  it  is-/  The  Man 
commonly  enough  laid  down  that  when  writing  his  (^  Page  67 
plays  he  had  no  desire  to  fill  the  Globe  Theater,  but 
that  his  intentions  were  of  the  following  description: 
"In  this  play  [Cymbehne]  Shakespeare  has  strongly 
depicted  the  frailties  of  our  nature,  and  the  effedt  of 
vicious  passions  on  the  human  mind.  In  the  fate 
of  the  Queen  we  behold  the  adept  in  perfidy  justly 
sacrificed  by  the  arts  she  had,  with  unnatural  ambi- 
tion, prepared  for  others ;  and  in  reviewing  her  death, 
and  that  of  Cloten,  we  may  easily  call  to  mind  the 
words  of  Scripture,"  etc.  And  of  "King  Lear"  it  is 
observed  with  great  confidence  that  Shakespeare 
"»o  doubt  intended  to  m^ark  particularly  the  afflid:- 
ing  character  of  children's  ingratitude  to  their  par- 
ents, and  the  condud;  of  Goneril  and  Regan  to  each 
other;  especially  in  the  former's  poisoning  the  lat- 
ter, and  laying  hands  on  herself^  we  are  taught  that 
those  who  want  gratitude  towards  their  parents  (who 
gave  them  their  being,  fed  them,  nurtured  them  to 
mans  estate)  will  not  scruple  to  commit  more  bar- 
barous crimes,  and  easily  to  forget  that  by  destroy- 
ing their  body  they  destroy  their  soul  also."  And 
Dr.  Ulrici,  a  very  learned  and  illegible  writer,  has 
discovered  that  in  every  one  of  his  plays  Shake- 
speare had  in  view  the  inculcation  of  the  peculiar 
sentiments  and  doftrines  of  the  Christian  religion, 
and  considers  the  "Midsummer  Night's  Dream" 
to  be  a  specimen  of  the  lay  or  amateur  sermon. 
This  is  what  Dr.  Ulrici  thinks  of  Shakespeare;  but 

what 


^Oafersprarc:  |  what  would  Shakespeare  have  thought  of  Dr. 
The  Man  V  Ulrici?  We  beheve  that  '■^Via^  Goodman  Dull,"  is 
Page  68  J  nearly  the  remark  which  the  learned  professor  would 
have  received  from  the  poet  to  whom  his  very  care- 
ful treatise  is  devoted.  And  yet,  without  pryinginto 
the  Teutonic  mysteries,  a  gentleman  of  missionary 
aptitudes  might  be  tempted  to  remark  that  in  many 
points  Shakespeare  is  qualified  to  administer  a  re- 
buke to  people  of  the  prevalent  religion.  Meeting 
a  certain  religionist  is  like  striking  the  corner  of  a 
wall:  he  is  possessed  of  a  firm  and  rigid  persuasion 
that  you  must  leave  oft  this  and  that,  stop,  cry,  be 
anxious,  be  advised,  and  above  all  things  refrain 
from  doing  what  you  like,  for  nothing  is  so  bad  for 
any  one  as  that.  And  in  quite  another  quarter  of  the 
religious  hemisphere  we  occasionally  encountergen- 
tlemen  who  have  most  likely  studied  at  the  feet  of 
Dr.  Ulrici,  or  at  least  of  an  equivalent  Gamaliel, 
and  who,  when  we,  or  such  as  we,  speaking  the  lan- 
guage of  mortality,  remark  of  a  pleasing  friend, 
"Nice  fellow, so  and  so!  Good  fellow  as  ever  lived!" 
reply  sternly,  upon  an  unsuspeding  reviewer, 
with — "Sir,  is  he  an  earnest  man?"  To  which,  in 
some  cases,  we  are  unable  to  return  a  sufficient  an- 
swer. Yet  Shakespeare  (differing,  in  that  respe6t  at 
least,  from  the  disciples  of  Carlyle),had,  we  susped:, 
an  obje6tion  to  grim  people,  and  we  fear  would  have 
liked  the  society  of  Mercutio  better  than  that  of  a 
dreary  divine,  and  preferred  Ophelia  or  "that  Ju- 
liet" to  a  female  philanthropist  of  sinewy  asped:. 
And,  seriously,  if  this  world  is  not  all  evil,  he  who 


has  understood  and  painted  it  best  must  probably  f  ^I/afecBpcarc: 
have  some  good.  If  the  underlying  and  almighty -|  The  Man 
essence  of  this  world  be  good,  then  it  is  likely  that  [^  Page  dp 
the  writer  who  most  deeply  approached  to  that  es- 
sence will  be  himself  good.  There  is  a  religion  of 
week-days  as  well  as  of  Sunday  s,  of  "  cakes  and  ale  "  * 
as  well  as  of  pews  and  altar  clothes.  This  England 
lay  before  Shakespeare  as  it  lies  before  us  all,  with 
its  green  fields,  and  its  long  hedgerows,  and  its  many 
trees,  and  its  great  towns,  and  its  endless  hamlets,  and 
its  motley  society,  and  its  long  history,  and  its  bold 
exploits,  and  its  gathering  power;  and  he  saw  that 
they  were  good.  To  him,  perhaps,  more  than  to  any 
one  else,  has  it  been  given  to  see  that  they  were  a 
great  unity,  a  great  religious  object;  that  if  you 
could  only  descend  to  the  inner  hfe,  to  the  deep 
things,  to  the  secret  principles  of  its  noble  vigor,  to 
the  essence  of  character,  to  what  we  know  of  Ham- 
let and  seem  to  fancy  of  Ophelia,  Vv^e  might,  so  far 
as  we  are  capable  of  so  doing,  understand  the  nature 
which  God  has  made.  Let  us,  then,  think  of  him  not 
as  a  teacher  of  dry  dogmas  or  a  sayerof  hard  sayings, 

'■'■A  priest  to  us  all^ 
Of  the  wonder  and  bloom  of  the  world"  ^ 

a  teacher  of  the  hearts  of  men  and  women;  one 
from  which  may  be  learned  something  of  that  in- 
most principle  that  ever  modulates 


*  <cc 


'•rwelth  Night;'  III,  2. 
'\  Matthew  Arnold,  "  T^'he  Youth  of  Nature ^ 

^WiTh 


^Ijakfspcavc:  |  "  With  murmurs  of  the  air^ 

T  H  E  A4  A  N    r        And  motions  of  the  forests  and  the  sea, 

Page  yo  J         And  voice  of  living  beings,  and  woven  hymns 

Of  night  and  day,  and  the  deep  heart  of  man  "* 

We  must  pause,  lest  our  readers  rejed:  us,  as  the 
Bishop  of  Durham,  the  poor  curate,  because  he  was 
"mystical  and  confused." 

Yet  it  must  be  allowed  that  Shakespeare  was  worldly; 
and  the  proof  of  it  is  that  he  succeeded  in  the 
world.  Possibly  this  is  the  point  on  which  we  are 
most  richly  indebted  to  tradition.  We  see,  gener- 
ally, indeed,  in  Shakespeare's  works,  the  popular 
author,  the  successful  dramatist :  there  is  a  life  and 
play  in  his  writings  rarely  to  be  found  except  in 
those  who  have  had  habitual  good  luck,  and  who,  by 
the  tad:  of  experience,  feel  the  minds  of  their  read- 
ers at  every  word,  as  a  good  rider  feels  the  mouth  of 
his  horse.  But  it  would  have  been  difficult  quite  to 
make  out  whether  the  profits  so  accruing  had  been 
profitably  invested, —  whether  the  genius  to  create 
such  illusions  was  accompanied  with  the  care  and 
judgment  necessary  to  put  out  their  proceeds  prop- 
erly in  adual  life.  We  could  only  have  said  that  there 
was  a  general  impression  of  entire  calmness  and 
equability  in  his  principal  works  rarely  to  be  found 
where  there  is  much  pain,  which  usually  makes  gaps 
in  the  work  and  dislocates  the  balance  of  the  mind. 
But,  happily  here,  and  here  almost  alone,  we  are  on 
sure  historical  ground.  The  reverential  nature  of 

''•  Shelley, ''Alastorr 


Englishmen  has  carefully  preserved  what  they  j  ^bafe^sp^at-s: 
thought  the  great  excellence  of  their  poet  —  that  he  -:^  The  Man 
made  a  fortune.*  It  is  certain  that  Shakespeare  was  (^  Page  ji 
proprietor  of  the  Globe  Theater,  that  he  made  money 
there,  and  invested  the  same  in  land  at  Stratford-on- 
Avon;  and  probably  no  circumstance  in  his  life  ever 
gave  him  so  much  pleasure.  It  was  a  great  thingthat 
he,  the  son  of  the  wool-comber,  the  poacher,  the 
good-for-nothing,  the  vagabond  (for  so  we  fear  the 
phrase  went  in  Shakespeare's  youth),  should  return 
upon  the  old  scene  a  substantial  man,  a  person  of 
capital,  a  freeholder,  a  gentleman  to  be  respedied, 
and  over  whom  even  a  burgess  could  not  affed;  the 
least  superiority.  The  great  pleasure  in  life  is  doing 
what  people  say  you  cannot  do.  Why  did  Mr.  Dis- 
raeli take  the  duties  of  the  Exchequer  with  so  much 
relish?  Because  people  said  he  was  a  novelist,  an  ad 

"^The  only  antiquarian  thing  which  can  be  fairly  called 
an  anecdote  of  Shakespeare  is,  that  Mrs.  Alleyne,  a 
shrewd  woman  in  those  times,  and  married  to  Mr. 
Alleyne,  the  founder  of  Dulwich  Hospital,  was  one 
day, in  the  absence  of  her  husband,  applied  to  on  some 
matter  by  a  player  who  gave  a  reference  to  Mr.  Hem- 
minge  {the  "  notorious  "  Mr.  Hemminge,  the  commen- 
tators say)  and  to  Mr.  Shakespeare  of  the  Globe,  and 
that  the  latter,  when  referred  to,  said,  "  l^es,  certainly, 
he  knew  him,  and  he  was  a  rascal  and  a  good-for- 
nothing.^'  The  proper  speech  of  a  substantial  man,  such 
as  it  is  worth  while  to  give  a  reference  to.  —  B. 

captandum 


^I)afer6pearf :  |  captandum  man,  and  —  monstrum  horrendum! — a 
The  Man  Mew  that  could  not  add  up.  No  doubt  it  pleased  his 
Page  y2  j  inmost  soul  to  do  the  work  of  the  red-tape  people 

better  than  those  who  could  do  nothing  else.  And 
so  with  Shakespeare:  it  pleased  him  to  be  respedted, 
by  those  whom  he  had  respe6tedwith  boyish  rever- 
ence, but  who  had  rejed:ed  the  imaginative  man,  on 
their  own  ground  and  in  their  own  subjed:,  by  the 
only  title  which  they  would  regard  —  in  a  word,  as 
a  moneyed  man.  We  seem  to  see  him  eyeing  the  bur- 
gesses with  good-humored  fellowship  and  genial 
(though  suppressed  and  half-unconscious)  con- 
tempt, drawing  out  their  old  stories  and  acquiescing 
in  their  foolish  notions,  with  everything  in  his  head 
and  easy  saying  upon  his  tongue,  a  full  mind,  and  a 
deep  dark  eye  that  played  upon  an  easy  scene;  now 
in  fanciful  solitude,  now  in  cheerful  society;  now  oc- 
cupied with  deep  thoughts,  now  and  equally  so  with 
trivial  recreations,  forgetting  the  dramatist  in  the 
man  of  substance,  and  the  poet  in  the  happy  com- 
panion; beloved  and  even  respedted,  with  a  hope  for 
every  one  and  a  smile  for  all. 


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